Global Health and Foreign Policy : Strengthening Health System Resilience Through Affordable Health Care for All

A/RES/75/130View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 131Global health and foreign policy, published in 2020.

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

1 entity

Extracted automatically from each entity’s budget submission.

What subjects does this mandate have?

5 topics

Covid-19 Foreign Policy Health Policy Health Services Public Health

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2021.

2021A/76/492Global health and foreign policy : strengthening health system resilience through affordable health care for all as well as improving international coordination and cooperation to address the health needs of all States during health emergencies report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

32 operative paragraphs

Urges Member States to strengthen national health systems through ensuring affordable health care for all, with a focus on primary health care, as well as the availability, accessibility and affordability of quality health services and quality, safe, effective, affordable and essential medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and health technologies, with a view to implementing the most effective, high-impact, quality-assured, people-centred, with full respect for human rights, gender- and disability-responsive and evidence-based interventions to meet the health needs of all throughout the life course;

Calls upon Member States to strengthen the resilience of their health systems as an integral part of their preparedness for health emergencies, so as to be able to respond to such emergencies while maintaining access to essential health services or to quickly reinstate them after disruption;

Encourages Member States to implement high-impact policies to protect people’s health and comprehensively address the social, economic and environmental determinants of health by working across all sectors through a whole-of-government and health-in-all-policies approach, promoting safe access to health-care services and taking into account such factors as socioeconomic status, housing, occupational condition, access to safe water and sanitation, education, digital connectivity and food security to obtain better health outcomes;

Also encourages Member States to provide access to essential socioeconomic benefits that can preserve the health and well-being of their population, such as providing social protection in case of public health emergencies;

Further encourages Member States to pursue efficient health financing policies, including through close collaboration among relevant authorities, including finance and health authorities, to respond to unmet needs and to eliminate financial barriers to access to quality, safe, effective, affordable and essential health services, medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and health technologies, reduce out-of-pocket expenditures leading to financial hardship and ensure financial risk protection for all throughout the life course, especially for the poor and those who are vulnerable or in vulnerable situations, through better allocation and use of resources, with adequate financing for primary health care, in accordance with national contexts and priorities;

Urges Member States to strengthen international cooperation to support efforts to build and strengthen capacity in developing countries, including through enhanced official development assistance;

Also urges Member States to pursue sustainable and innovative health financing policies through, inter alia, effective domestic resource mobilization as well as better allocation and use of resources with adequate financing for primary health care, innovative financing and pandemic preparedness through close collaboration among relevant authorities, public-private partnerships, civil society, academia and philanthropy;

Calls upon Member States to address the challenges of preventing and combating illicit financial flows and strengthening international cooperation and good practices on assets return and recovery, and recognizes that fighting corruption at all levels and in all its forms is a priority and that corruption is a serious barrier to effective resource mobilization and allocation and diverts resources away from activities that are vital for poverty eradication and sustainable development, which may undermine efforts to achieve universal health coverage;

Urges Member States to further strengthen and improve the quality, capacity, accessibility and affordability of health systems for all through enhancing evidence-based public health measures, health workforce and access to quality essential health-care services and safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and other health technologies for all, including procurement, distribution and availability, infrastructure, information systems, preparedness and response plans and service delivery;

Encourages Member States to promote coherent and coordinated national strategies for safe, effective, quality, affordable essential health services, in mitigating the impacts from health emergencies and post-emergency recovery processes;

Calls upon Member States, who have the primary responsibility to counter discrimination and hate speech, and all relevant actors, including political and religious leaders, to promote inclusion and unity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to prevent, speak out and take strong action against racism, xenophobia, hate speech, violence, discrimination, including on the basis of age, and stigmatization;

Calls upon States to ensure that all human rights are respected, protected and fulfilled while combating the pandemic and that their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are in full compliance with their human rights obligations and commitments;

Also calls upon States to take all measures necessary to ensure the right of women and girls to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, including sexual and reproductive health, and reproductive rights, in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences, and to develop sustainable health systems and social services, with a view to ensuring universal access to such systems and services without discrimination;

Calls upon Member States to ensure access to medicines as one of the fundamental elements of a robust health system based on universal health coverage, and reaffirms that States have the primary role and responsibility to determine and promote their own path towards achieving universal health coverage that ensures universal and equitable access to quality essential health services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and other health technologies for all, without discrimination;

Reaffirms the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) as amended, and also reaffirms the 2001 World Trade Organization Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, which recognizes that intellectual property rights should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of the right of Member States to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all, and notes the need for appropriate incentives in the development of new health products;

Calls upon Member States to enhance and build constructive engagement and stronger partnership with relevant stakeholders from the public and private sectors, civil society and academia to pursue access to universal health coverage by improving the availability, affordability and efficiency of health products through increasing transparency of prices of medicines, vaccines, medical devices, diagnostics, assistive products, cell- and gene-based therapies and other health technologies across the value chain, including through improved regulations, in accordance with national and regional legal frameworks and contexts, to address the global concern about the high prices of some health products, and in this regard encourages the World Health Organization to continue its efforts to biennially convene the Fair Pricing Forum with Member States and all relevant stakeholders to discuss the affordability and transparency of prices and costs relating to health products as one of the fundamental features of a robust health system based on universal health coverage;

Also calls upon Member States to explore ways to consider integrating, as appropriate, safe and evidence-based traditional and complementary medicine services within national and/or subnational health systems, particularly at the level of primary health care, according to national context and priorities;

Stresses the critical importance of monitoring the indirect impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on integrated service delivery as well as maintaining the essential part of health-care delivery and global supply chains during the pandemic, including prevention and treatment services for communicable diseases, management of emergency health conditions, provision of medication, supplies and support from health-care workers for the ongoing management of non-communicable diseases, including mental health conditions, and auxiliary services;

Calls upon Member States to scale up efforts to strengthen health information systems and collect quality, timely and reliable data, including vital statistics, disaggregated by income, sex, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographical location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts as required to monitor progress and identify gaps in the universal and inclusive achievement of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals, while protecting the privacy of data that could be linked to individuals, and to ensure that the statistics are used to support evidence-based health sector planning, monitor the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on health service supply and demand, and facilitate progress towards the achievement of universal health coverage, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

Encourages Member States, international organizations and other relevant stakeholders to work collaboratively at all levels to develop, test and scale up production of safe, effective, quality, affordable diagnostics, therapeutics, medicines and vaccines, inter alia and as appropriate through the use of existing mechanisms, such as the Medicines Patent Pool, to promote equitable, affordable and timely access to medical products and health technologies in health emergencies;

Acknowledges with appreciation the devoted efforts of health workers and care workers, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and urges Member States to scale up efforts to promote the recruitment and retention of competent, skilled and motivated health workers and encourage incentives to secure the equitable distribution of qualified health workers through national human resource mapping and planning, to match needs in remote and underserved areas, and in fields with high demand for services, including by providing decent and safe working conditions and appropriate remuneration for health workers working in such areas, while adhering to the principles of the World Health Organization Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel;

Calls upon Member States to scale up and accelerate the implementation of the commitments made in the political declaration on HIV and AIDS of 2016 and the political declaration on tuberculosis of 2018, to sustain the fragile gains towards achieving the ambitious commitment of ending the epidemics of AIDS and tuberculosis, as set out in Sustainable Development Goal target 3.3, including by advancing comprehensive multisectoral and multi-stakeholder responses and integrated service delivery and ensuring that no one is left behind;

Reaffirms the strong commitments made in the political declarations of 2011 and 2018 and the outcome document of 2014 of the high-level meetings of the General Assembly on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, and in this regard calls upon Member States to promote ambitious multisectoral national responses and thereby contribute to the overall implementation of the 2030 Agenda, including by integrating, throughout the life course, action on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases and the promotion of physical and mental health and well-being;

Stresses the need to address public health issues related to substandard and falsified medical products by advancing collaboration for building regulatory capacity for medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and other essential health commodities, assuring the quality and safety of services and training of health-care workers, maintaining and safeguarding the quality control and supply chain management, and where relevant, enhancing national and regional production capacities, both in regular situations and during health emergencies;

Also stresses the need to continue and advance multisectoral collaboration to build and strengthen capacities, inter alia, for public health surveillance, detection and reporting systems, especially at points of entry, prevention and control measures in the community and health-care facilities, clinical management, risk communication and community engagement;

Calls upon Member States to further implement and reinforce an integrated One Health approach that fosters cooperation between the human health, animal health and plant health, as well as environmental and other relevant sectors, taking into account the relevant guidance recommended by the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Organization for Animal Health, and exchanging reliable information and scientific knowledge in a timely manner;

Calls upon Member States, other partners and donors to urgently support funding and close the funding gap for the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator and its mechanisms, such as the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) Facility, and support equitable distribution of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, and further explore innovative financing mechanisms aimed at ensuring continuity and strengthening of essential health services;

Encourages Member States to work with the World Health Organization and other key stakeholders to strengthen their capacity to deal with public health emergencies, with a view to ensuring full and effective implementation of and compliance with the International Health Regulations (2005), in order to build resilient health systems and strengthen surveillance and preparedness measures, particularly with regard to infectious diseases and other health threats;

Calls upon Member States to continue to support the international efforts under the coordination of the Secretary-General to work with all relevant actors in order to mobilize a coordinated global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its adverse social, economic and financial impact on all societies;

Invites relevant United Nations entities, especially the World Health Organization, to continue to provide quality and effectively disseminated normative guidance and technical support to Member States, upon their request, in order to build capacity, strengthen health systems and promote financial sustainability, training, recruitment, development and retention of human resources for health and technology transfer on mutually agreed terms, to deal with health emergencies, with a particular focus on developing countries;

Invites the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Organization for Animal Health to further strengthen their collaboration before and during pandemics through the Tripartite Secretariat, to combat health risks in the human health, animal health and plant health, as well as environmental and other relevant sectors in the context of the One Health approach, together with other relevant parts of the United Nations system and relevant stakeholders in this regard;

Requests the Secretary-General, in close collaboration with the Director General of the World Health Organization as well as other relevant international organizations, to report to the General Assembly at its seventy-sixth session, under the item entitled “Global health and foreign policy”, on progress related to strengthening health system resilience through affordable health care for all as well as improving international coordination and cooperation to address the health needs of all States during health emergencies, as requested in the political declaration of the high-level meeting on universal health coverage.

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