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Keynote Sessions
8. Universal Health Coverage and Primary Health Care are to remain the basis of Health
Systems. Universal Health Coverage (UHC), i.e. access to affordable, quality care, varies widely
within and between countries. The world is not on track to make significant progress towards
SDG 3.8 on UHC by 2030. Conflicts and migration create additional strains on health systems,
with vulnerable people such as poor, refugees and migrants often benefitting least from UHC.
Globally, the UHC service coverage (access) has improved between 2000 and 2021, but has
stagnated since 2015. The result is that by 2021 about 4.5 billion people were still not fully
covered by essential health services. At the same time, the proportion of the population that
faced catastrophic levels of out-of-pocket health spending has increased continuously since
2000. Average quality of care in many LMIC settings is poor, variable and unpredictable,
at times with a “know-do” gap. To build back better, WHO’s recommendation is to reorient
health systems using a primary health care (PHC) approach. Most (90%) of essential UHC
interventions can be delivered through a PHC approach, potentially saving 60 million lives and
increasing average global life expectancy by 3.7 years by 2030.

Important Note: the views expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of
the World Health Organization.

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