Event highlights
5 June 2024
Accelerating universal health coverage in the Western Pacific: shifting focus to country-level action
With the halfway mark toward the 2030 deadline now behind, the urgency to advance progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) becomes increasingly pressing. UHC, one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, stands as a global priority. Recognizing the need for a more significant impact at the country level to accelerate UHC, the 7th UHC Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meeting was held in Manila in April 2024. The meeting underscored the necessity of shifting from regional guidance to country-specific support across the Western Pacific Region to effectively address each country's unique needs, priorities and challenges in achieving UHC.
With the resonant theme "Country Focus and Impact: Accelerating UHC to Achieve Health SDG by 2030", the meeting brought together 127 participants, including representatives from 24 Member States, UHC TAG and TAG Alliance members, WHO Secretariat members from WHO headquarters, the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific and 13 WHO Country Offices in the Region. The event featured dynamic panel discussions, collaborative group sessions, live polls, and insightful side events, fostering a cooperative environment for sharing experiences and insights.
Outcomes and future actions
Over the two days, participants discussed the progress and obstacles in achieving UHC, highlighting the Western Pacific's complex health landscape marked by aging populations, climate change, and the double/triple burden of disease. Although there have been improvements in service coverage, the incidence of people experiencing catastrophic health spending has doubled, emphasizing the urgent need for targeted actions.
Importantly, participants strategically identified common key factors that could either accelerate progress towards UHC:
- Political commitment and advocacy for greater investments and multistakeholder engagement on Health issues
- Fit for purpose and future ready Health Workforce
- Sustainable health financing with more equitable and efficient resource allocation e.g. in Primary Health Care
- Digital Health and technology for expanding service coverage and improving health systems performance
- Health information and research to guide actions and investments
- Community empowerment and participation for promoting healthy behaviors and providing people centered responsive health services
The fourth TAG Alliance meeting was held as a separate session with the participation of all seven TAGs in the Western Pacific region The consensus of the TAG Alliance was to work together to synergize cross-programmatic work, taking a systematic approach under the umbrella of UHC.
The meeting concluded with a consensus on priority areas and actions for Member States, UHC TAG and WHO to enhance country-specific focus and impact for advancing UHC. Emphasizing the need for paradigm shifts, the meeting advocated for prioritizing and strengthening primary health care as the foundation for UHC. In addition, a collective call emerged for imperatively increasing investments in health, building a fit-for-purpose and future-ready workforce, expanding digital health initiatives and harnessing the power of data science for well-informed decision-making. These measures aim to better address the unique challenges and needs of each country, ultimately accelerating progress towards UHC and “Health for All”.
Event notice
Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030 is the overarching health target in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is well recognized that health is a precondition for, and an outcome of the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development agenda. The COVID-19 pandemic acutely reinforced the need to reposition health and well-being and to amplify multisectoral efforts in progressing UHC in countries.
However, the 2023 Global UHC Monitoring Report shows that globally, the service coverage is stagnating and financial protection against catastrophic health expenditures is worsening. In the Western Pacific Region service coverage improved from 49 in 2000 to 79 in 2021. On the other hand, catastrophic health expenditures in the Region doubled from nearly 10% in 2000 to nearly 20% in 2019 – the highest amongst all six WHO regions. Further, many countries are off-track in achieving half of the health SDG targets by 2030. This reinforces the urgency to intensify multi-pronged efforts and apply innovative approaches to address the impediments in accelerating UHC progress.
Following the United Nations High Level Meeting on UHC in September 2023, the world leaders adopted a new Political Declaration on “Universal Health Coverage (UHC): expanding our ambition for health and well-being in a post-COVID world”, to accelerate efforts, prioritize health and make smarter investments for advancing UHC.
To help accelerate UHC progress in the Western Pacific, the UHC Technical Advisory Group (UHC TAG) shifted its focus from providing regional level guidance to country level policy advice and support. During the meeting of the new UHC TAG members in September 2023, a new vision was developed “to serve as a responsive and multidisciplinary expert advisory body committed to creating country impact and advancing UHC by providing strategic advice and pragmatic solutions in collaboration with WHO and Member States”. Aligned with this vision, the UHC TAG will provide advice and capacity building, create country support groups based on common needs, advocate the UHC agenda to policy-makers, and contribute to developing UHC tools and guidelines as key priorities.
Given this backdrop, participants in the Seventh UHC TAG Meeting will tackle issues under the theme of “Country focus and impact: accelerating UHC to achieve Health SDG by 2030”.
* The UHC TAG was established in April 2016 to support countries’ efforts to accelerate progress towards achieving UHC, after the Sixty-sixth session of the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific adopted a resolution on UHC where the Regional Action Framework Universal Health Coverage: Moving Towards Better Health was endorsed.
Participants:
UHC TAG members, Member State Representatives, TAG Alliance members, WHO staff from all three levels, development partners, and other experts
Objectives:
- to discuss UHC progress and challenges in the Region and countries, building the understanding of current situation and priorities;
- to identify cross-programmatic enablers, strategies and innovative approaches in transforming health systems for UHC, informed by country experiences; and
- to recommend policy and programmatic solutions towards achieving UHC and health SDG by 2030.
For updates on the event and future outcomes of discussion, please visit the UHC in the Western Pacific webpage.
Contact information
Dr Rajesh Narwal
Coordinator, Universal Health Coverage
Data, Strategy and Innovation Group
WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific