UN High-Level Meeting (UN HLM) on Universal Health Coverage

The UN High-Level Meeting (UN HLM) on Universal Health Coverage will take place on 23 September 2019 during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) high-level week. This is a great opportunity for all universal health coverage (UHC) champions and advocates to make your voice heard and help mobilise high-level political attention globally and in your countries.

The theme of the HLM-UHC is ‘Universal Health Coverage: Moving Together to Build a Healthier World.’ This UN HLM will be the last chance before 2023, the mid-point of the SDGs, to mobilise the highest political support to package the entire health agenda under the umbrella of UHC, and sustain health investments in a harmonised manner. To do this, it is critical to identify how the political declaration on UHC can add value to these efforts and set milestones towards achieving UHC by 2030.

UHC2030 has been asked to support the preparatory process for the UN HLM, particularly to share “evidence and good practices, challenges and lessons learned.” We have organized a series of multistakeholder consultations, including an online survey, to define a set of key “asks” that partners can use to feed consolidated messages into the UN HLM including the multistakeholder hearing on 29 April 2019, inter-governmental negotiations and interventions during the UN HLM.

An important step in the preparation process is the interactive multistakeholder hearing convened by the President of the UN General Assembly on 29 April 2019. The hearing aims to engage the active participation of “appropriate senior-level representatives of Member States, observers of the General Assembly, parliamentarians, representatives of local government, relevant United Nations entities, non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, invited civil society organizations, philanthropic foundations, academia, medical associations, the private sector and broader communities, ensuring the participation and voices of women, children, youth and indigenous leadership” as part of the preparatory process. Participants will be encouraged to exchange views on key priorities to raise with Heads of States during the HLM, while underscoring experiences and best practices on the ground, highlighting the special challenges faced by civil society organisations, private sector and other stakeholders.