Universal Health Coverage Life Course Cluster

Overview

Only in Africa is the child population aged under 18 years expected to grow through 20501. Attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depends on the region securing this demographic dividend, by investing in child and adolescent well-being. The aim of the Child and Adolescents Health (CAH) program is that newborns, children, and adolescents in the WHO African Region survive, thrive, and develop to their full potential.

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Overview

Achieving the targets related to sexual, reproductive, and maternal health and the health and well-being of older people is critical to ensuring that Member States of the African region, leave no one behind towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030. With this achievement, Member States would have made remarkable progress in reducing preventable maternal deaths, improving access to sexual and reproductive health and rights services, increasing the percentage of births attended by skilled health professionals, and achieving universal health coverage. Furthermore, the health and well-being of older individuals would have been improved. The Reproductive Maternal Health and Healthy Ageing (RMH) unit provides policy, programmatic, and technical support to countries in the African region to achieve these targets. 

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Overview

Strong health governance is key for ministries of health to undertake the desired leadership and stewardship roles that allow the participation of key stakeholders in advancing the national health agenda in the modern-day dynamic and pluralistic health sector environment, with multiple health systems actors, including communities, sub-national levels, private sector, and development partners. WHO is one of the leading organizations to support countries in the development, implementation, monitoring, and review of their national policies, regal frameworks, and plans as tools for strengthening health governance. WHO Resolution WHA64.8 “Strengthening national policy dialogue to build more robust health policies, strategies and plans” requested, amongst other things, for WHO Director-General ‘to strengthen the Organization’s capacity at all levels for enhanced and integrated support to national policy dialogue around national health policies, strategies, and plans. Furthermore, the WHO 13 General Programme of Work 2020-2025 reinforces the importance of all countries having an updated, comprehensive NHPSP by including this as one of the main areas of work under Category 4. Supporting countries to strengthen health governance promotes and builds capacities for improved transparency, accountability, responsiveness, and empowerment of communities.

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Overview

In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted the considerable challenges faced by countries in the WHO African Region in generating essential health information. The challenges were particularly severe regarding the reporting of deaths where 32 countries (68%) had almost no capacity to register deaths, and 35 (74%) were hardly able to determine and report causes of deaths. In response, the WHO Regional Director for Africa created the Health Information Systems (HIS) team to support countries to enhance their HIS and improve the availability, accuracy and use of health data to aid decision-making.

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Overview

The health workforce is essential for delivering healthcare, ensuring access to care, supporting public health initiatives, and sustaining healthcare systems for universal health coverage and sustainable development goals. The availability of health workforce is highly associated with higher attainment of Universal Health Coverage targets, improved Human Development, and increased probability of survival for women and children. Through these, investing in health workers has an economic return of US$1 to US$9. 

The World Health Organization supports Member States in the WHO African Region to be able to invest and optimize their health workforce capacity by improving their availability, quality, distribution, retention, and performance for increasing access to quality essential health services along the life cycle. 

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Overview

In the African Region, up to one in ten people face the risk of being pushed into poverty due to health expenses. The Health Financing and Investment (HFI) programme's overall objective is to support countries to reduce the number of people suffering financial hardship in the process of utilizing essential healthcare services.

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Overview

In 2021, WHO  identified access to medicine as a critical challenge in Africa, home to 1.2 billion people representing 15.24% of the global population. Unfortunately, many life-saving medicines remained inaccessible and unaffordable for a significant portion of the population, leading to preventable suffering and poor health outcomes. This lack of access exacerbated wider health and socioeconomic disparities and hindered progress toward achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the Health Security Agenda. 

Middle-income countries face low availability of essential medicines in the public and private sectors. Surveys revealed that in developing countries, the average availability of essential medicines stood at approximately 35% in the public sector and 63% in the private sector. Given that around 80% of Africans relied on public health facilities, chronic shortages of critical medicines became a major barrier to adequate healthcare provision, particularly during emergencies. 

The financial burden of medicines was evident, with 60 to 90% paid out-of-pocket. Inadequate financial coverage and funding mechanisms restricted access. Additionally, African countries lacked local production capacity for life-saving medicines, oxygen, and vaccines, making local production crucial to reduce dependence on imports. 

Incidents in 2022 and 2023 resulted in the loss of children's lives, highlighting the threat of substandard and falsified medical products. Weak regulatory systems underscored the need for stronger capacities to ensure product quality and safety. To achieve UHC and Health Security, WHO emphasized the role of health products in a resilient system, encompassing medicines, vaccines, blood products, traditional medicine, medical devices, and health infrastructure. The WHO Regional Office for Africa launched the MIM program to support countries in ensuring access to essential health products for all populations. 

MIM's strategic interventions supported Member States in developing evidence-based policies for sustainable access to essential medical products. Strengthening regulatory capacities, promoting convergence, harmonization, and reliance mechanisms for quality-assured products were crucial. WHO facilitated access through market shaping and efficient procurement. Promoting local production stimulated the growth of quality-assured medicines in Africa. 

Through these efforts, WHO aimed to make essential health products more accessible to all in the African region. By achieving this vision, WHO contributed to advancing Universal Health Coverage and the Health Security Agenda in Africa. 

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