SoUHCC - State of UHC Commitment

In September 2019, world leaders endorsed universal health coverage (UHC), the most ambitious and comprehensive political declaration on health in history. By endorsing the declaration, they committed to ensuring that, by 2030, everyone in every country can receive all the quality health services they need without suffering financial hardship.

Starting in 2020, an international group of stakeholders have been monitoring each country’s progress towards UHC through the State of UHC Commitment. This global initiative, led by the International Health Partnership for UHC 2030 (UHC2030), aims to provide a multi-stakeholder consolidated view on the state of global and country commitments to making progress towards UHC by 2030. Monitoring progress can help build momentum for UHC and hold governments accountable to achieving UHC. The review will be more ‘political’, ‘country-focused’ and ‘action oriented’ in nature and so complement the more ‘technical’ and ‘global’ UHC monitoring report focusing on UHC indicators on service coverage and financial protection.

Monitoring progress on UHC and holding governments accountable to take the necessary actions may require data that is not be readily collected by national institutions when it comes to political dimensions around rights, governance and equity. It will also involve providing empirical assessments of the experiences of people, especially the vulnerable, in accessing health services rather than taking at face value policy documents which document what ought to be happening. As such, the review aims to provide country stakeholders with the necessary novel information to feed into inclusive and participatory review processes for assessing UHC progress and commitments over time. Such review processes should provide the basis to report into the regular country and global preparatory processes of the SDG Summit, the UN High Level Meeting and the High-Level Political Forum (e.g. Global Sustainable Development Report, SG’s Progress Report on UHC, Voluntary National Review, Health Thematic Review, etc.). In addition to the country focused multi-stakeholder reviews, a global component may be added to track actions on related commitments and initiatives made by the global health stakeholders.

The project will involve policy/document review, country consultations, collation of indicators, surveys to non state actors and government actors, and media monitoring.