Meeting Sustainable Development Goal 3 in Brazil: an assessment of ability and willingness

Ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all at all ages is the third goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This goal includes targets to further reduce maternal, infant and child mortality, as well as to “end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases”. Health systems are essential for social protection and, as well as contributing to the SDGs for health overall, they also play a key role in promoting equity in access to healthcare, a core principle of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). 2 As part of efforts to achieve UHC, investment in essential primary healthcare delivered through health systems may be particularly important in reducing health inequalities and meeting the goals set out in SDG 3. Whether resources are allocated specifically to realise these goals, however, remains an open question.