Welcome to the United Nations
Prof. Dr. Ilona Kickbusch
Director of the Global Health Centre
The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and Co-Chair of the UHC2030 Steering Committee.
How can we create sustainable and resilient societies? Health, undeniably, plays a foundational role. Good health allows children to learn and adults to earn; it helps people escape from poverty; it addresses social and gender inequities and provides the basis for wellbeing, social cohesion, health security and long-term economic development.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set a broad and ambitious agenda for a safer, fairer and healthier world with no one left behind. Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030 is a core driver to promote physical and mental health and well-being, and will also support the achievement of health-related SDGs.
UHC means that all people and communities have access to needed quality health services without risk of financial hardship. To achieve UHC, we must effectively strengthen health systems to make them sustainable and resilient. UHC also means building progressive pathways that endeavor to first reach the most vulnerable and marginalized populations to ensure no one is left behind. Countries that make progress towards UHC will also make progress towards other health-related targets across different sectors and towards all the SDGs.
Sustainable and resilient health systems matter for society. By resilience, we mean the capacity of actors, institutions and populations to prepare for and respond to health crises.
The worldwide resurgence of dengue fever, the global spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), and recent outbreaks of Ebola, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, avian influenza, and the Zika virus have shown how epidemics can spread rapidly in the absence of strong responsive and resilient health systems. No nation is immune to the growing global threat that can be posed by an isolated outbreak of infectious disease in a seemingly remote part of the world. However, with strong health systems countries are better able to prevent, detect, and respond effectively to these crises, thus dramatically reducing the loss of life, community disruption, and economic costs of such events.
UHC is an ambitious target, with its own set of challenges. Fragmentation of efforts by a range of actors and the financing of health are both key issues to address. In order to achieve UHC, we must build resilient health systems that are funded primarily by public finance, and based on primary health care. They must deliver integrated, comprehensive people-centred and quality health services for all, while taking necessary measures to protect households from financial hazards due to health expenditures.
These efforts should be led by national governments, in support of national health policies and plans, building on and strengthening existing sector-wide processes to avoid fragmentation but with the collaboration of other country and global health stakeholders. The progressive realisation of the right to health through UHC is primarily a national responsibility, but can be assisted through regional and global solidarity, exchange and international cooperation.
Under the auspices of UHC2030, there are new opportunities to reach out and draw in all the actors that need to be on board. UHC2030 is a movement to strengthen health systems for UHC. A range of partners including governments in low-, middle- and high-income countries, development partners, civil society organisations, media and the private sector are coalescing around a set of key principles to guide their action in prioritising and implementing health systems strengthening. These principles identified by the UHC2030 global compact for progress towards universal health coverage are:
- Leave no one behind: a commitment to equity, non-discrimination and a human rights based approach
- Transparency and accountability for results
- Evidence-based national health strategies and leadership
- Make health systems everybody’s business with engagement of citizens, communities, civil society and private sector
- International cooperation based on mutual learning across countries and development effectiveness principles.
UHC2030’s approach promotes policy dialogue between the government health sector authorities and all people, to ensure multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral actions in health system strengthening at global, regional and country levels. The commitment and actions of our partners injects new political energy into the growing global movement for UHC and as we forge new relationships, allegiances and networks, we find we are stronger together to reach our goal.
