Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All: a commitment to accelerating together

1. This global action plan was initiated by Germany and Norway but founded by a cluster of multilateral agencies, focused on implementation of SDG-3. See the full document or the summary for more information.
2. Primary driver: the sharp bend in the trend-line needed if the indicators for SDG-3 are to be achieved. For example an estimated 800 million in the WHO SEARO region are vulnerable to severe financial stress from out-of-pocket health expenditure.
3. In the bottom group of less developed countries, health expenditure is estimated to be around 10% of what it needs to be by 2030 to achieve SDG-3, a gap of $180b. A World Bank presentation suggested the major factors to change this picture will be:

• shift of country expenditure from lower priority items
• investment in innovation
• doubling of health-related aid

4. The key task during current consultation phase (till September 2019) is to identify accelerators – joint actions that are expected to accelerate progress and remove obstacles
5. Presentations from Ghana, Colombia and Nepal highlighted some of the challenges:

• Sustaining achievement beyond the initial burst of enthusiasm and funding
• Inequality, so focusing on median will not be good enough: disaggregated data is needed
• Effective social protection (eg health insurance) systems
• Weak HR capacity
• Political structural decisions (eg Nepal) that makes some indicators go backwards
• Inadequate data and data collection

6. There is a representative civil society advisory group which calls for clear communication and consultancy and reminds that civil society will have a crucial role when it comes to implementation.