Caribbean adopts ambitious agenda to build sustainable, universal health by 2030

WASHINGTON, Sep.17, CMC – Health leaders from throughout the Americas, including the Caribbean, have endorsed an ambitious and wide-ranging agenda for fighting diseases and making their countries’ health systems universal and sustainable by the year 2030.
The Sustainable Health Agenda for the Americas 2030 (SHAA2030)—which takes inspiration from the global UN Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030—was unanimously adopted during the 29^th Pan American Sanitary Conference, meeting this week at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington.
PAHO said on Wednesday that the new agenda commits countries to pursuing 11 goals and 60 targets that will be used to measure progress toward those goals. They range from achieving universal health coverage to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Americas, all by the target year 2030.
In launching the new agenda, PAHO Director Dr. Carissa F. Etienne said it is a prime example of the public health leadership the Region of the Americas has shown for more than a century.
“I believe if any region can bring this agenda to reality it is the Americas region,” she said. “It is because of our solidarity, our commitment and our passion that we can make it happen.”
The agenda’s 11 goals cover a range of action areas deemed essential for strengthening countries’ health systems to ensure their efficiency, effectiveness, equity and sustainability, with the ultimate goal of guaranteeing that all people have access to the health care they need when they need it, without fear of financial difficulty, PAHO said.
It said the agenda builds on progress made in the first part of the 20^th century toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as well as goals set in the Health Agenda for the Americas 2008-2017, which was adopted by PAHO member states in 2007.
PAHO said that regional health progress includes an increase of 3.2 years in average life expectancy between 2000 and 2015, significant reductions in infant mortality, and major declines in communicable diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria.
The region has also reached three historic health milestones so far this century: the elimination of endemic measles circulation (in 2016) and the elimination of rubella and congenital rubella syndrome (in 2015), PAHO said.
Despite this progress, PAHO said significant health gaps remain between low- and higher-income countries of the region and between different population groups within countries.
In the new Sustainable Health Agenda for the Americas, PAHO said countries have agreed to prioritize actions that will help ensure that future health progress is more equitable, so that no country or population group is left behind.
“Until every man, woman and child can live a life that is healthy and productive, we will have failed, and I don’t want the next generation to say, ‘what did they do,’” said Etienne. “Let’s go forward with the commitment that we will reach everyone who is not being reached.”
PAHO said the goals of the Sustainable Health Agenda for the Americas are, among others: To expand equitable access to comprehensive, integrated, quality, people-, family-, and community-centered health services, with an emphasis on health promotion and illness prevention; to strengthen stewardship and governance of the national health authority (ministries of health), while promoting social participation; and to strengthen the management and development of human resources for health with skills that facilitate a comprehensive approach to health.
The goals are also to achieve adequate and sustainable health financing with equity and efficiency, and advance toward protection against financial risks for all persons and their families; to ensure access to essential medicines and vaccines and to other priority health technologies, according to available scientific evidence and the national context; and to strengthen information systems for health to support the development of evidence-based policies and decision-making.
Ministers of health from throughout the Americas are meeting this week at PAHO headquarters to discuss public health policies, address health challenges, and guide the organization’s technical cooperation in each country.