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The UN High-level meeting on Universal Health Coverage: Expanding our ambition for health and well-being in a post-COVID world, was an opportunity for leaders to renew their commitments to achieve health for all by 2030 and deliver ambitious action at the country level.
This newsletter shares highlights from the high-level meeting and related events and provides details on upcoming opportunities for all of us to sustain the momentum and ensure that world leaders translate their commitments into action.
Recap of the UN High-level meeting on UHC
On 21 September 2023, heads of state and government convened at the UNGA for the High-level meeting on Universal Health Coverage (UHC), where they approved the Political Declaration on UHC and re-committed to making health for all a reality by 2030.
During the meeting, Member States unanimously recognized that UHC is fundamental to achieving all of the Sustainable Development Goals, including those related to poverty eradication, access to education, gender equality, climate change and building peaceful and inclusive societies. They also reaffirmed that the way forward to making progress towards UHC needs to be based on a people-centred primary health care approach.
Click here for a detailed summary of the event, including a selection of quotes from speakers.
After the high-level meeting on September 21, the Group of Friends of UHC and Global Health, UHC2030, WHO, the UHC Partnership, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the UN Foundation hosted a reception. This event gave UN HLM delegations and participants an opportunity to showcase success stories of UHC reforms in countries and provide inspiring testimonies of how we turn political commitments into country action. It concluded with the announcement of the 2023 UHC Day theme, Health For All: Time For Action.
Click here for our overview of the event.
On 18 September, WHO and the World Bank published the Tracking Universal Health Coverage: 2023 Global monitoring report. According to the report, the world is off track to make significant progress towards UHC by 2030; improvements to health service coverage have stagnated since 2015, and the proportion of the population that faced catastrophic levels of out-of-pocket health spending has increased.
Click here to read the report.
Following the launch of the report, the Civil Society Engagement Mechanism for UHC2030 (CSEM) published a Civil Society Commentary to highlight civil society perspectives on progress toward UHC and call to action for governments.
On 14 September, UHC2030 co-hosts published a blog about the urgency of investing in resilient, equitable health systems to get UHC progress back on track. The authors call on countries to use the Action Agenda from the UHC Movement to implement the political commitments made at the high-level meeting on UHC.
Click here to read the blog.
Image copyright: Fauzan Ijazah/World Bank
On September 22, following the HLM on UHC, civil society advocates from across a wide range of health issue areas gathered in NYC for a post-HLM debrief and strategy session organized by CSEM, the IFRC, and the Global Health Council. Over 70 advocates attended the event and shared their post-HLM advocacy plans.
CSEM will also host an online session on September 29 to share HLM outcomes and advocacy opportunities. Click here to register.
As a co-convenor of the Alliance for Gender Equality and UHC, Women in Global Health (WGH), along with UHC2030, invite you to participate in an online consultation on how to make health systems gender responsive in order to accelerate progress towards achieving UHC by 2030. Your feedback will help us develop an advocacy brief on gender-responsive health systems.
Click here to fill out the survey by 15 October 2023.
Mark your calendars!
15 to 17 October 2023: World Health Summit 2023 - "A defining year for global health action"
12 December 2023: Universal Health Coverage Day. This year’s messages, graphics and resources will be ready in the coming weeks. Sign up for UHC Day updates to stay tuned.
In case you missed it...
Statement of the UHC2030 co-chairs on the adoption of the Political Declaration on UHC
Joint statement from the UHC2030 Private Sector Constituency for the UN HLM on UHC
Blog from the principals of the Coalition of Partnerships for UHC and Global Health
UN press release on the the UN high-level meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response
UN press release on the UN High-level Meeting on Tuberculosis
UHC2030 Secretariat is provided by the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
