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Happy holidays from UHC2030!

With 2024 coming to a close, we at UHC2030 wish to thank you for your commitment to health for all. We have achieved many important milestones this year, and none of them would have been possible without your support and engagement. Below is a look back at some of the highlights from 2024. 

Even as we celebrate progress, we recognize that the journey is far from over. For too many, poverty is just one medical bill away. We cannot rest until everyone can exercise their fundamental right to health, without financial hardship. 

Let’s keep up the momentum and continue to take action together by:

• Spreading the word: Keep using the UHC Day toolkit to spread awareness about the urgent need for financial protection for health.
• Advocating for change: Write to your decision makers and urge them to invest in policies that protect people from impoverishing health costs.
• Staying informed: Stay tuned and invite your friends and colleagues to subscribe to this newsletter for updates, insights and opportunities to engage throughout 2025. 

With your continued support, we can build healthier, more equitable societies where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

Thank you for standing with us. We wish you a restful holiday season and look forward to achieving even more together in 2025!

Last week, on UHC Day, advocates from around the world rallied behind the theme, Health: It's on the government, with over 120 events in nearly 40 countries and over 100 UHC champions from all levels of leadership and civil society. Visit the microsite to learn about this year's champions and watch the various testimonials and video messages, including from the Civil Society Engagement Mechanism (CSEM) and the Coalition of Partnerships for UHC and Global Health. 

During the flagship UHC Day event, the youth-parliamentarian town hall, high-level speakers focused on the alarming level of financial hardship and impoverishment caused by direct payments for health services, and the need for effective advocacy strategies and open dialogue to accelerate progress towards health for all. 

Other key updates include the launch of the 2024 Global Health Expenditure Report by the WHO, and the UHC Movement Political Panel's op-ed on Devex, urging global leaders to address the global health financing emergency domestically and internationally to achieve universal health coverage. 

In September, heads of State and governments and other stakeholders convened at the 79th UN General Assembly. During this meeting, world leaders adopted by consensus the Pact for the Future, which acknowledges UHC as fundamental for addressing poverty, inequality and environmental changes, and for promoting the rights of women and girls, education, social and economic development and sport. UHC is also featured as a commitment within the Declaration on Future Generations.  

The high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance also recognized the crucial role of UHC, which helps to prevent the mis- and overuse of antimicrobials by ensuring equitable access to affordable and essential health services, medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and health technologies.

Other highlights include the 5th Annual Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends of UHC and Global Health to discuss the critical role of financial protection in achieving UHC and equitable access for all, and a round-table discussion on the Lusaka Agenda and its contributions to UHC and the global health financing eco-system. 

In May, during the 77th World Health Assembly, WHO Member States adopted the Resolution on social participation for universal health coverage, health and well-being. This critical resolution recognized the importance of regular and meaningful social participation to ensure the accountability and legitimacy of health systems strengthening and universal health coverage efforts anchored in a primary health care approach. In adopting it, Member States committed to:

• Strengthening public sector capacities for the design and implementation of meaningful social participation;
• Enabling equitable, diverse and inclusive participation, with a particular focus on promoting the voices of those in vulnerable and/or marginalized situations;
• Ensuring that social participation influences transparent decision-making for health across the policy cycle, at all levels of the system;
• Implementing and sustaining regular and transparent social participation using a range of mechanisms supported by public policy and legislation;
• Allocating adequate and sustainable public sector resources in support of effective social participation;
• Facilitating capacity strengthening for civil society to enable diverse, equitable, transparent and inclusive social participation; and
• Supporting related research, and piloting projects/programmes and their monitoring and evaluation to promote the implementation of social participation.

During the Steering Committee meetings held in April, UHC2030 constituencies endorsed the UHC2030 Strategic Framework for 2024–2027. This document outlines our collective actions and targets for the next three years. It is structured around three pathways for change:  

• Advocacy: Influencing decisions by political, economic and social institutions to advance UHC 
• Accountability: Tracking the implementation of commitments to foster actions, decisions, policies and programmes for UHC 
• Alignment: Convening stakeholders to exchange information and to elevate the importance of alignment with one national plan and of working within national structures to strengthen health systems  

Developed in close consultation with the UHC2030 Steering Committee’s constituencies, this Framework highlights how UHC2030 will harness the power of its constituencies and entities on the path towards the next UN High-level meeting on UHC in 2027 and in the last stretch before the 2030 milestone for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It provides an overview of key activities UHC2030 will implement collectively over the next three years to ensure that UHC commitments are translated into laws, policies, programmes and budgets.   

In case you missed it

12 December 2024: 2024 UHC Day Annual Town Hall Summary: A conversation between youth and parliamentarians on UHC and financial protection

12 December 2024: Opinion: With political will, we can close the health financing gap

18 November 2024: Protecting everyone, everywhere, from the financial burden of climate change on health

12 November 2024: Unlocking health equity in every byte

22 October 2024: UHC2030 urges leaders to implement financial protection for health care at the World Health Summit and the UNITE Summit

16 October 2024: A statement from UHC2030 co-chairs to G7 Health Ministers

4 October 2024: 2024 UHC Day campaign launch – Health: It’s on the government!

1 October 2024: Important milestones for universal health coverage at the 79th UN General Assembly

23 September 2024: Universal health coverage: A link not to be missed in pandemic prevention, preparedness and response

13 September 2024: The Mpox global health emergency: A critical reminder of the need to prioritize and invest in universal health coverage in the pandemic agreement

UHC2030 Secretariat is provided by the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.