Universal Health Coverage

The Integrated Service Delivery (ISD) and Primary Health Care (PHC) unit provides oversight of the WHO Regional Office for Africa’s work on the adoption of integrated people-centred health services, in line with the primary health care approach, for attaining universal health coverage (UHC), the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other country-level health targets.

The unit’s key areas of work are supporting Member States to develop, disseminate and implement global and regional guidance to improve access to quality essential health services in both everyday and emergency situations; creating an enabling environment for the documentation of lessons learnt and the sharing of experiences and best practices; and promoting internal WHO and external collaboration and partnerships to leverage expertise and other capacities for health service provision.

The delivery of essential health services is key to advancing UHC. Yet the Region’s UHC Service Coverage Index score of 44 in 2021 indicates that less than half of the population accessed the health services they needed, underscoring the significant work still required to build a PHC-based health system in the African Region.

To revitalise primary health care as the pathway to universal health coverage, WHO in the African Region is prioritising the following actions:

  • Reorienting health systems: advocating for and supporting Member States to reorient their health systems to the primary health care approach.
  • Essential services and quality of care: continuing to support countries in developing and implementing essential health services packages (EHSP), national quality policies and strategies (NQPS) and related plans.
  • Evidence on PHC: finalising the state of PHC in the AFRO report and producing country and regional profiles on PHC.
  • PHC26-30 Roadmap: developing the PHC26-30 Roadmap for revitalising PHC for UHC in the Region.
  • Surgical care: developing the Regional Surgical Care Strategy.
  • Coordination: setting up an Inter-Cluster Technical Working Group to better coordinate WHO support to revitalise PHC in Member States.
  • Evidence and best practices: supporting the generation of health systems evidence and the documentation of best practices.
  • Partnerships: strengthening the regional partnership in support of PHC in the Region, working with Africa CDC, UNICEF, UNFPA, the African Development Bank, the World Bank and other partners.

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