WHO-World Bank Report: More than half of world’s population is still not covered by essential health services

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank on Tuesday jointly published the 2023 Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Global Monitoring Report.

The report reveals an alarming stagnation in the progress towards providing people everywhere with quality, affordable, and accessible healthcare.

According to the report, more than half of the world’s population is still not covered by essential health services.

Furthermore, 2 billion people face severe financial hardship when paying out-of-pocket for the services and products they need.

Released ahead of the High-Level Meeting on UHC at the 78th United Nations General Assembly, this report exposes the stark reality of lack of affordability and accessibility of healthcare services.

The 2023 report revealed that, over the past two decades, less than a third of countries have improved health service coverage and reduced catastrophic out-of-pocket health spending. Moreover, most countries for which data are available on both UHC dimensions (96 out of 138) are off-track in either service coverage, financial protection, or both.

While health service coverage improved since the beginning of the century, progress has slowed since 2015, when the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted, the report revealed.

According to the report, catastrophic out-of-pocket health spending, defined as exceeding 10% of a household budget, continues to rise. More than one billion people, about 14 percent of the global population, experienced such large out-of-pocket payments relative to their budgets.

The reports also highlighted that even small expenditures in absolute terms can be devastating for low-income families. approximately 1.3 billion individuals were pushed or further pushed into poverty by such payments, including 300 million people who were already living in extreme poverty.

Out-of-pocket health payments can also cause individuals to forego essential care and force families to choose between paying for a visit to the doctor, buying food and water, or sending their children to school, the experts found.

Achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030 is crucial for fulfilling the promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and realizing the fundamental human right to health.