Background paper for the regional technical consultation on: Monitoring the Health-Related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Overview

The era of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has begun. Health is well placed in the SDGs. The health goal (SDG 3) is broad: ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’. The SDG declaration emphasizes that to achieve the overall health goal, ‘we must achieve universal health coverage (UHC) and access to quality health care. No one must be left behind’. This places UHC as at the centre of the SDG 3 health goal and SDG 3 as a contributor to and beneficiary of sustainable development, with linkages to all
the other SDG targets. Achieving SDG 3 will depend on progress in other SDGs – e.g., poverty reduction; education; nutrition; gender equality; clean water and sanitation, sustainable energy and safer cities.