The annual virtual conference on MHM in schools provides a vital global platform for practitioners and policy makers to share ideas, discuss approaches to common problems, and to assess progress against the five priorities of the ‘MHM in Ten’ agenda. Now in its seventh year, the conference illustrated some of the successes and challenges we face if we are to realise the MHM in Ten priorities that will improve girls’ lives by 2024.

In times of crisis, children face many dangers: They are forced from home, separated from family, deprived of food, barred from school, and exposed to exploitation and violence. In crises involving armed conflict, children are threatened by injury and death. But bullets and bombs are not always the deadliest threats to a child’s life. In protracted conflicts, children younger than 15 are, on average, nearly three times more likely to die from diarrheal disease linked to unsafe water and sanitation than violence directly linked to conflict and war.