The journey to advancing universal health coverage (UHC) is not straightforward and needs sustained political commitment to strengthen health systems equipped to address future challenges. After the formative years of the annual meetings of the Technical
Advisory Group (TAG) on Universal Health Coverage in the Western Pacific Region since 2016, Member States gained momentum and reinforced the development of their UHC roadmaps guided by fifteen action domains under the five attributes of high performing
health system articulated in the Regional Action Framework on Universal Health Coverage: Moving Towards Better Health. With the dynamic challenges and emerging
health threats, there is a vivid recognition that strengthening and transforming health systems to deliver UHC requires rethinking of strategies.
The For the Future vision articulated operational shifts including taking a systems approach with UHC as the foundation to “future-proof” health systems. This approach has become increasingly more relevant with the onset of COVID-19
as countries grapple to adapt and recover from the interconnected challenges of the pandemic. With the shifting landscape of health, the UHC TAG identified data, programmes and systems as key components in the UHC journey, advocating to bring together
all disease control programmes to transform health systems that deliver integrated services with strong data for informed decision-making and progress monitoring.
In charting our path forward for UHC, and to realize the envisioned “new future” (of the 5th UHC TAG meeting) with people-centred, lifelong engagement and participatory primary health care, strengthened public health capacity for sustained management of COVID-19 and future health threats, and integrated planning and delivery of data, disease control programmes and health system, the Sixth Meeting of the UHC TAG will be convened to serve as the platform to equip and support Member States in (re)designing their UHC roadmaps. Outcomes of discussions will guide our ways forward to provide support at the country level in the succeeding UHC TAG works, including the development of a guide to support the (re) design and implementation of UHC roadmaps.
The objectives of the meeting are:
- To discuss and reinforce the future directions envisioned from previous UHC TAG meetings to transform health systems by bringing together data, programmes and systems with UHC as the foundation
- To explore ways to operationalize the strategic shifts for health systems transformation
- To share inputs on the development of tool to guide Member States' UHC roadmaps.
Contact information:
Mr Sangyoun Oh
Technical Lead, Universal Health Coverage