4th November 2025 – City Cancer Challenge (C/Can) is proud to announce that we have joined the newly launched Milken Institute Women’s Health Network, serving as co-chair of the Access to Cancer Care Working Group alongside the American Cancer Society (ACS). This opportunity reinforces C/Can’s commitment to advancing equitable access to cancer care by collaborating with a global network of organisations dedicated to improving the health and well-being of women everywhere.
Why Centering Women Matters
Around the world, women are the backbone of health systems, as patients, caregivers, and health professionals. Yet too often, their experiences are overlooked in how care is designed. In many Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), these challenges are amplified by limited access to services, under-resourced health facilities, and competing priorities within health systems.
At C/Can, we have seen this reality firsthand. Over the past six years, working with 16 cities across Latin America, Africa and Asia, we’ve learned that: Improving cancer care requires listening to real-world experiences and co-designing solutions around them to fit local context and communities’ needs.
These are the realities that reinforce why connecting across borders matters and ultimately why communities of practice like the Women’s Health Network are essential.
The Value of a Global Community of Practice
Too often, knowledge remains siloed. Research doesn’t reach decision makers, lessons from one geography aren’t transferred to another and local innovations have limited scale.
The Women’s Health Network offers something different, a space where organisations can learn from one another, connect research to implementation, and turn local insights into policy and global progress. By working together, we accelerate solutions that no single organisation could achieve alone.
No single organisation can transform cancer care alone. Change happens when we share knowledge, break down silos, and build on each other’s strengths. Joining this Network reflects C/Can’s commitment to collaboration, so that more women, wherever they live, can access the care they deserve.
Isabel Mestres, CEO, C/Can
C/Can’s contribution to the Women’s Health Network
As co-chair of the Access to Cancer Care Working Group, C/Can will help ensure that women’s lived realities, from policy to the front lines of care, are shaping global decision-making. C/Can will bring a unique perspective: evidence, insights, and lessons from cities driving change from the ground up in LMICs.
Through our health systems strengthening approach, we work hand-in-hand with local governments, public and private health institutions, health professionals, civil society organisations, patients, community groups and partners. Together, we are advancing a gender-responsive model of cancer care that is equitable, scalable and anchored in local realities.
Through collaboration with these key stakeholders, we identify: .
- where women encounter barriers in accessing timely, quality diagnosis and treatment,
- how cancer pathways can be redesigned to better support women in all their diversities,
- why local voices must shape cancer policies from the start, and
- what is needed to train, mentor, and empower local workforce able to deliver gender-responsive cancer care.
Our role as co-chair is to ensure that these lived realities are not only heard, but integrated into global decision-making, contributing to long-term, system-level change including, but not limited to:
- Sustained improvements in access, quality and equity of cancer care for women,
- A scalable model of gender-responsive cancer care, and
- A women-centric approach embedded in how cities plan and strengthen their cancer care systems.
Looking ahead
We are honoured to join this community and help drive concrete progress toward equitable cancer care for everyone, everywhere. By sharing knowledge, combining expertise, and building bridges between local and global efforts, we can create meaningful, lasting change. Improving cancer care for women strengthens health systems for everyone.
We look forward to collaborating with partners across the Milken Institute Women’s Health Network and moving forward, together, toward equitable cancer care for all. United by a shared vision, we can transform possibility into progress, and build a future where quality cancer care is not determined by geography, gender, or circumstance.
