Dr Mbololwa Mbikusita-Lewanika, Health Adviser at the Commonwealth Secretariat, discusses the commitment of Commonwealth countries to achieve the health-related Sustainable Development Goals and outlines examples of best practice from member states that are making healthcare accessible to all.
“Although good health is a human right, there are many challenges in ensuring that the most marginalised have access to quality health services and are not left behind.”
The Commonwealth is committed to actively pursuing the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly as they relate to the health and wellbeing of Commonwealth citizens. The latter reflect and affirm the Commonwealth Charter’s values and principles of promoting access to affordable healthcare, and removing wide disparities and unequal living standards. In particular this entails accelerating universal health coverage (UHC), strengthening health systems and addressing communicable and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), as a means of securing a more sustainable future for Commonwealth citizens.
In 2012, the UN unanimously endorsed the goal of UHC. In 2019, the high-level meeting on UHC held at the UN General Assembly focussed on accelerating progress towards UHC, by seeking to ‘garner financial and political commitments from countries and sustain health investments’. The resulting political declaration on UHC was endorsed by heads of state…
Dr Mbololwa Mbikusita Lewanika
Health Adviser, Commonwealth Secretariat
