Healthy women and children enable healthy economies, political stability and forward momentum. However, far too many newborns, children, adolescents and women still die of preventable conditions every year, and too few have access to quality health services. The Global Financing Facility for women, children and adolescents (GFF), which was launched in July 2015, is a key financing platform of the UN Secretary-General’s updated Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health. It is a country-driven financing partnership that brings together, under national government leadership, stakeholders in reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH), to provide smart, scaled and sustainable financing to accelerate efforts to end preventable maternal, newborn, child and adolescent deaths by 2030. The GFF has the potential to act as a pathfinder for financing the SDGs.