PD 11 - Strengthening Universal Health Coverage

We are only a decade away from meeting the targets outlined in SDG 3 - in particular, Universal Health Coverage. At a global level, UHC index has improved from 45.8 in 1990 to 60.3 in 2019, but the achievement is uneven with an index as high as 95 in Japan to one as low as 25 in Somalia. The pandemic is undoing the gains made so far and halted progress, which has increased the risk of failure in achieving the SDG targets. However, we have also observed a significant improvement in the uptake of opportunities provided by digitalisation and digital technologies in high-, middle-, and low-income countries alike, during the ongoing pandemic. In this panel, we will discuss some of the challenges and opportunities of digitalisation in the context of strengthening UHC in LMICs. We will focus on knowledge exchange between digitally strong health systems and digitally weak health systems, on digital health governance, readiness of countries for digital healthcare, and how we can accelerate and support the digital transformation of health systems worldwide in a bid to achieve equity in UHC.