After Women Deliver 2026: Call for Stronger Systems and Evidence to Advance Menstrual Health Equity

At Women Deliver 2026 in Naarm/Melbourne, a session on 30 April brought together advocates, policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors, and researchers to reflect on progress to date and consider what is needed next. The discussion focused on how education, policy, trade, markets, innovation, and evidence can work together to expand access to menstrual health products and services and shape future action.

Menstruation spans roughly 35 years of life. Yet for millions of women and girls, access to affordable, safe and appropriate menstrual products of choice, remains shaped by the systems around them, including education, policy, trade, markets, financing, data and social norms.

This was the central message of “35 Years of Menstrual Periods: Systems Change and Evidence for Impact,” a 90-minute session held during Women Deliver 2026 in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. The session was organized by SHF’s Capital M, together with the Gates Foundation, and The Case for Her. It was followed by a session on the Architecture for Menstrual Health Indicators initiative (AiMHI) facilitated by colleagues from WaterAid, The University of Queensland and Columbia University.

The session brought together voices from across the menstrual health ecosystem to reflect on a simple but urgent idea: progress in menstrual health cannot happen in silos. It requires coordinated systems that bring together education, health, policy, markets, finance, evidence, and partnerships working in alignment rather than isolation. 

Aligning systems for choice and access

The first part of the session, “35 Years of Periods: Aligning Education, Trade & Innovation for Choice,” focused on how menstrual health outcomes are shaped by the systems that enable, or limit, access over a lifetime.

Moderated by Sally Moyle, Honorary Associate Professor at the Gender Institute, Australian National University, the discussion explored how education, policy, trade, standards, markets and finance need to work together to expand choice and improve access to menstrual products.

Speakers highlighted the gaps between menstrual health as a right and what girls and women can access in practice, particularly when school-based or community support programmes are fragile, short-term or disconnected from wider systems.

“We are surviving and getting by, but that’s not enough,” said Nagla Abbas, a lawyer and youth and women’s rights advocate from Zanzibar. “We need to integrate sustainability into how we live. As young people facing the next 35 years, our future depends on collective action and shared responsibility.”

From a policy perspective, Mereseini Rakuita, Principal Strategic Lead, Pacific Women and Girls at the Pacific Community, underlined the need to move menstrual health beyond the education sector and into broader governance, development and policy systems.

“In the Pacific, menstrual health remains largely confined to the education sector because our systems have not fully recognized it as a cross-sector development issue. That must change,” she said.

The discussion also examined the role of local enterprise and trade systems in expanding access. Anne-Shirley Korave, Founder and CEO of Queenpads PNG, shared the experience of building a social and green enterprise delivering reusable menstrual products and awareness programmes in Papua New Guinea.

Her intervention highlighted how local producers face practical barriers related to supply chains, standards, affordability and the cost of doing business, even as they play a critical role in expanding choice and reaching communities.

“The more sensitized everyone is on menstruation and its needs, the stronger the sense of priority will be towards a coordinated ecosystem that fills the gaps in trade, product accessibility and education for menstrual equity much faster,” Anne-Shirley Korave told the audience.

The role of finance was also central to the discussion. Cameron Neil, Co-founder and Director of Red Hat Impact, reflected on why it remains difficult to move menstrual health from grant-funded support to sustainable, investable markets that can reliably scale access.

“To achieve a period-friendly world, we need to transform menstrual health markets,” he said. “Capital plays a key role: capital that acknowledges the economic development and positive community and national outcomes from menstrual market investments, embraces the time and patience required, and shares risk and power.”

Together, the speakers showed how fragmentation between education, policy, trade, markets and finance can limit access throughout the menstrual life course. They also pointed to the structural shifts needed to build a more joined-up menstrual health ecosystem.

As Sally Moyle noted: “Building a well-resourced and cohesive approach to empowered menstrual health will require the same skills and patience we have applied to gender equality more broadly, to address structural exclusion, restrictive norms and silences.”

Hidden levers of change

The session also highlighted the often-hidden systems that shape access to menstrual products, including global trade rules and product classification.

A current example is the work supported by SHF’s Capital M, and championed by Members of the World Trade Organization, led by Canada and Barbados, for the revision of the classification of menstrual products through reform of the Harmonised System codes used by customs authorities to monitor the movement of goods worldwide. While technical, this issue has direct implications for affordability, visibility, safety and policy coherence.

Without clear product classifications, governments struggle to track trade flows, identify market gaps, enforce standards, and design effective policies. It also constrains product innovation, with tariffs often misaligned to product categories and market realities, impacting price and availability. Improving  classification will  help make these products more visible in trade systems and support more coherent action across markets and policy environments.

Finally, in summing up, Wendy Anderson, Co-Founder of The Case for Her and Board Member of SHF, reinforced the central message that menstrual health progress depends on a functioning ecosystem. She highlighted that sustained impact requires alignment across policy, markets, finance, education, health, and trade systems, supported by stronger evidence and coordinated action.