Twenty-eight government and non-government participants gathered on May 8, 2019, in Tbilisi, Georgia for the second United Nations High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage (UN HLM on UHC) Country Advocacy Meeting. The CSEM, IFRC and UNAIDS are organizing country level advocacy meetings for the HLM on UHC to provide civil society with a national level platform to advocate for an effective high-level meeting that results in ambitious national commitments to advance UHC.
The session discussed the Key Asks from the UHC Movement for the UN High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage and Civil Society Priority Actions for the UN High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage. In line with these documents, the participants, ranging from high-level government officials to community-based organization representatives, broke into discussion groups to map out national UHC-related gaps. The major outcome of the meeting was an agreement by participants to continue to engage on the HLM to finalize, share and publicize the way forward in the buildup to the high-level meeting. Read meeting report here.
Planning is underway for meetings in Afghanistan, Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ghana, India, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Pakistan, Philippines and South Africa. For more information on the country advocacy meetings and guidance on how to conduct a meeting in your country, click here. To bolster evidence-based advocacy and decision-making at the country level, the CSEM in collaboration with Save the Children UK collated UHC data on over 200 countries. This comprehensive data forms a strong basis for in-country civil society advocacy on the HLM and can help policymakers determine UHC gaps and come up with commitments to fill those gaps. The country data is accessible here.
