Author: Secretariat

As the dusk settled in New York after the United Nations General Assembly took place in late September, the world enters in its final decade before the Sustainable Development Goals is expected to be realized. Among these goals is SDG 3, particularly 3.8 that commits to: “Achieve universal health coverage (UHC), including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.” As such, the UN High Level Meeting (HLM) on UHC was held along with other equally important High-Level Meeting that week, with the Climate Action Summit and the High-Level Forum on Financing for Development taking place that same week. Admittedly, the framing of the Political Declaration revolves around the SDG target, but also intends to provide a comprehensive answer to health-related issues, and hence to put an end to the procession of health-related HLMs. Since the UN General Assembly Special Session on AIDS in 2001, Member States and other actors realized the power in leveraging a High-Level political process to demand political leadership, to call for increased international cooperation and funding, and to mobilize communities to ensure that there is accountability in these processes. While the AIDS epidemic continues to be a highly relevant agenda until today (essentially given the increasing and resurging epidemics in some countries, especially in Asia and the Pacific), countries...