Geneva, Switzerland, 20 May 2019 (PAHO) - Cooperation agencies and representatives of Colombia, Germany, Nepal, Ghana, and Rwanda, as well as civil society, discussed the new Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All at a side event of the 72nd World Health Assembly, which is taking place until 28 May in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Action Plan is coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and includes eleven international health and development agencies. It seeks new ways for the countries to work together to accelerate progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The final plan will be delivered in September 2019 at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Primary health care is one of the cross-cutting areas included in the plan, with the potential to substantially increase the pace of progress toward countries achieving universal health coverage and other health-related SDG targets.
Panel members included Colombia’s Minister of Health, Juan Pablo Uribe, along with representatives of Germany, Nepal, Ghana, and Rwanda, among others. Uribe believes that, for Colombia and other countries, the main challenge to moving toward achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development “is working with local authorities in an integrated manner, so that people in the most remote areas receive good health care.”
Uribe also said that his country faces three challenges: maintaining to the progress achieved in coverage, moving toward health equity, and resolving immigration challenges.
Besides WHO, the organizations that already have signed up to the Plan are: Gavi - The Vaccine Alliance, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Global Financing Facility, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, Unitaid, UN Women, the World Bank, and the World Food Programme (WFP).
The Global Action Plan will also enhance collective action and leverage funds to address gender inequalities that act as barriers to accessing health, and to improve comprehensive quality health care for women and girls, including sexual and reproductive health services.
