WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the UHC Partnership Global Meeting – 11 December 2024

Honourable Ministers Kapavore, Paredes and Walcott,

Deputy Minister Muhsinzoda,

Dear colleagues and friends,

Good morning, and I'm sorry I can't be with you in person, but I'm delighted that you are joined today by representatives from 120 countries and territories from all six WHO Regions.

You have come together to assess how the UHC Partnership has supported countries on their path to universal health coverage, and to discuss ways to accelerate progress.

While significant gains have been made in some countries, we must acknowledge that overall, progress on UHC still lags.

About half the world's population still lack access to one or more essential health services.

And two billion people face financial hardship due to out-of-pocket health spending.

That means families have to choose between health care or their next meal; medicines or schoolbooks.

While access to services has seen some improvement globally, using those services is driving more and more people into financial hardship or poverty.

WHO, together with all of you, established the UHC Partnership a few years ago to provide technical assistance to countries.

It began with 30 priority countries, and today has grown to 125.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the European Union, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom for their generous support over the years.

I thank the European Commission, especially, for supporting the UHC partnership with 125 million euros from 2023 to 2027.

And of course, we have many fruitful discussions ongoing with our other partners, including as part of the Investment Round.

From WHO's side, I am working with my Regional Directors, country representatives and senior management to maintain health policy advisers as core staff of the WHO country offices for the long-term. It's an important part of our work and must be sustained.

Currently, more than 150 health policy advisers are now deployed in countries and territories to support Ministries of Health.

They provide high-level policy and strategic guidance on a wide range of activities:

Innovative financing, emergency preparedness, digitizing health systems, primary health care investment, and strengthening health and human resource strategies, based on the health system building blocks.

You will hear about these and many other initiatives over the next three days.

An important and innovative aspect of the UHC Partnership approach is its flexibility.

For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the health policy advisers served as incident managers in our country offices, and more deployments are possible based on country needs.

At this meeting, I hope you will agree that the UHC Partnership will serve as a key instrument for the implementation of WHO's ambitious new global health strategy, the 14th General Programme of Work.

That's why this meeting is so timely, and why it is critical that when you return home, you implement the action points agreed upon here and accelerate progress towards UHC. You have WHO's full support.

I look forward to hearing your recommendations.

Thank you all for your continuing commitment to health for all as a fundamental human right, an end in itself and the foundation of sustainable development.

That's the world that WHO and the UHC Partnership are working for.

I thank you, and all the best.

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