Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all Indians at all ages
WHO Country Office for India and the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) are organizing a two-day on 10-11 May 2016, ‘National consultation on transitioning from MDGs to SDGs’, to deliberate and agree upon the process for integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda into national and state level health plans and policies.
The focus of the two-day consultation is to reflect on the successes and the lessons learnt from the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) era and the possible way forward for achieving the ambitious and inclusive agenda of SDGs in the health sector over the next 15 years.
The key speakers at the opening session were: Mr B. P. Sharma, Secretary, Health, MoHFW; Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Secretary and Director, Health Research, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR); Dr Jagdish Prasad, Director General Health Services, MoHFW; Mr C.K. Mishra, Additional Secretary & Mission Director, National Health Mission, MoHFW; Mr Manoj Jhalani, Joint Secretary, Policy, MoHFW; Dr Henk Bekedam, WHO Representative to India and Chair UN Health Group-India.
In 2015, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) came to the end of their term and the post-2015 agenda, comprising 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), took their place. Health systems are central to the new agenda.
The SDG health goal (SDG-3) aims to ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’ and is underpinned by a set of 13 broad targets that cover a wide spectrum of health aspects. All the 193 UN Member States, including India have committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) between 2016 and 2030.
The key objectives of the meeting are to discuss the post 2015 Development Agenda and the role of health; orient and consult all major national and state-level stakeholders on adoption and implementation of SDG-3; policy options for implementing the Health SDG in India; and strengthening the health systems response.
Some of the key discussions points at the consultation are:
- The evolution of SDG agenda and place of health within the SDGs
- Post 2015 agenda; key steps for the countries to move forward
- Learnings from MDGs to guide the implementation of SDGs in India
- Policy options for implementing the SDG-3 (health goal) in India
- Universal Health Coverage as a key driver to integrated planning and implementation
- The monitoring framework for SDG-3; key suggestions, challenges and steps for its implementation
- Cost effective and scalable interventions for
- Finishing the unfinished agenda
- Tackling the emerging health priorities
- Strengthening the health systems response
The deliberations are expected to achieve broad consensus on national implementation and monitoring frameworks for the health goal under SDGs. It is envisaged that the discussions would lead to certain plausible recommendations, and the way forward for India’s move towards successful rollout and implementation of strategies aimed at achievement of SDG-3.
The consultation is being attended by senior national and state level officials, representatives of key ministries including MoHFW, NITI Aayog, Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) and Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), UN agencies, development partners, academia and other stakeholders.