All In: Sustainable Approaches to Improve Maternal Health and Achieve UHC through strategic private sector collaborations
As the world prepares for the U.N. High-level Meetings on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (Sept. 20), Universal Health Coverage (Sept. 21), and Fight Against Tuberculosis (Sept. 22), some 3.5 billion people — almost half the world’s population — lack access to the health services they need and the quality of service received by many with care is poor. Indeed, we have more people dying from poor-quality care than lack of access to care.
In addition to the lack of progress toward UHC, the world is not on track to achieve health-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. For example, reductions in maternal mortality have stagnated — in 2020, an estimated 287,000 women globally died from a maternal cause.
While improving health outcomes is a global priority, governments have committed to achieving all the SDGs by 2030. All countries, particularly low- and middle-income ones, are struggling to meet the financing necessary to achieve the SDGs. This is due to:
1. Perennially strapped national budgets, with 110 governments expected to spend less, or minutely increase spending on health between now and 2027 in comparison to pre-pandemic periods;
2. Cyclical cuts in foreign aid, especially from countries that have historically championed development assistance;
3. Slowing increases in donor funding ; and
4. Funding gaps further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and new development funding directed toward pandemic response efforts.
Amid climate change, LMICs around the globe will continue to experience local threats and crises — pandemics, epidemics, humanitarian emergencies and conflicts, economic crises, natural disasters, mass migration — further threatening the resilience of health systems and progress toward the SDGs, including UHC. In response to this, the World Health Organization calls for an additional $200 billion a year to scale up primary health care across LMICs, despite already strapped national budgets.
Local private sector enterprises can act as an additional mechanism to address critical health care system gaps and market health failures and catalyze economic growth for investments.
The session will be hosted by Devex and sponsored and convened by MSD for Mothers and WHO’s Country Connector on Private Sector in Health to bring together the perspectives of key stakeholders making strategic decisions about health care investments on the ground in LMICs, including government and development partners. We particularly aim to draw on the experiences of the speakers in health financing and investment for sustainability and resilience to advance equitable access to care. The speakers will also highlight the policies and practices to be strengthened to help bridge the gaps above.
Join us in New York or online as we pave the pathway forward toward a healthier and more equitable world.
The event will be preceded by a networking breakfast for in-person attendees.