Universal health coverage, health systems strengthening, and the World Bank
نویسندگان
چکیده
T he sustainable development goals (SDGs) formally promote universal health coverage as a key objective for the global health community. This focus on universal health coverage arose both from a desire to maintain the health gains achieved by the millennium development goals and from criticism that those goals were short term in nature and narrowly focused on disease specific approaches. 2 On 12 December 2012, universal health coverage had unequivocal endorsement from the UN General Assembly (including the United States) with the approval of a resolution that confirmed the “intrinsic role of health in achieving international sustainable development goals.” Also in 2012, a World Health Organization discussion paper on the post-2015 health agenda (what would emerge as the SDGs) identified universal health coverage as a “way of bringing all programmatic interests under an inclusive umbrella.” The 2014 Ebola virus outbreak struck in the middle of deliberations on the SDGs, and reviews of the global health community’s response to the epidemic have emphasised the importance of health systems strengthening to achieving equitable, accessible, and resilient healthcare. 6 In this paper, we examine the World Bank’s past and present role in health systems strengthening within the current global health architecture, and critically analyse several points this raises.
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