What is UHC Day?
Universal Health Coverage Day on 12 December is the annual rallying point for the global movement for health for all. It marks the anniversary of the United Nations’ historic and unanimous endorsement of universal health coverage in 2012.
Since its establishment in 2016, UHC2030 is proud to have supported partners around the world in organizing events each UHC Day. Building on its experience and mandate, UHC2030 is uniquely positioned to coordinate UHC Day observations across the UN system and in countries around the world.
Leading transparently and collaboratively, UHC2030 convenes a multi-stakeholder Coordination Group on International UHC Day (12.12.CG) that includes Member States, multilateral organizations, health-related initiatives, civil society, parliamentarians, philanthropic foundations, the private sector and academia.
As an issue that cuts across every Sustainable Development Goal, health tells us how well we are delivering on our entire 2030 Agenda, from ending poverty and tackling climate change to building safe and peaceful societies.
In 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which sets out 17 wide-ranging and interconnected goals for a greener, healthier, more peaceful and equal planet by the year 2030.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, at all ages. Within this health goal, target 3.8 is specifically to “Achieve UHC, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all”. But SDG 3 is also cross-cutting, meaning that progress towards health and well-being contributes to progress towards other SDGs, and action on other SDGs in turn contributes to attaining Goal 3.
“The goals and targets are strongly connected to each other. For example, poverty (Goal 1) can lead to hunger and malnutrition (Goal 2), which may lead to health problems (Goal 3) that may prevent children from completing their education (Goal 4) or adults from getting a job (Goal 8). As you can see, the links between the goals mean that we cannot see them in separation to one another but as a puzzle, which cannot be completed without all the pieces.” -SDG Zone
