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PRIORITYMEASURE46
“Guarantee sufficient financial, human and technological resources in order to provide universal access to sexual health care and reproductive health care
for all women, men, adolescents, young people, older persons andpersonswith disabilitieswithout any form of discrimination.”
Comments
1. As noted in the discussion of the prioritymeasures in this chapter, in order to promote, protect and guarantee health and sexual and reproductive rights
thesemust bemade an integral part of primaryhealthcare, which in turnmust be strengthened. Only in the context of primaryhealthcare is it possible to
guarantee sufficient financial, human and technological resources toprovide universal access to sexual and reproductive health for all persons.
2. In the context of the post-2015 agenda and the SDGs, work is now underwayon:
(a) Strengthening primary healthcare. The 53rd Directing Council of PAHO, meeting in Washington D.C. from 29 September to 3 October 2014,
approved the Strategy for Universal Access to Health and Universal Health Coverage, which (i) calls on Member States to establish formal
mechanisms for participation and dialogue, establish national targets and goals, and define plans of action for universal access to health and
universal health coverage, to strengthen governance and stewardship in the health sector, to improve the organization and management of health
services, to improve human resource capacities at the first level of care, to increase the efficiency and public financing of health, to advance toward
eliminating direct payment, and to facilitate the empowerment of people and communities; (ii) requests the Director of PAHO to facilitate the
leadership of the health authorities, to prioritize technical cooperation that supports countries in advancing toward universal access to health and
universal health coverage, to develop measures to implement the strategy and to monitor it, to promote innovation and to strengthen the
mechanisms of interagency coordination;
(b) The Report of the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals presented to the United Nations General
Assembly inAugust 2014 declares, in paragraph 12, that
“[e]ach country has primary responsibility for its own economic and social development
and the role of national policies, domestic resources and development strategies cannot be overemphasized. Developing countries need additional
resources for sustainable development. There is a need for significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources and the effective use of
financing, in order to promote sustainable development. In the outcome document, the commitment to reinvigorating the global partnership for
sustainable development and to mobilizing the resources necessary for its implementation was affirmed. The report of the Intergovernmental
Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing will propose options for a sustainable development financing strategy. The
substantive outcome of the third International Conference on Financing for Development, in July 2015, will assess the progress made in the
implementation of the Monterrey Consensus and the Doha Declaration. Good governance and the rule of law at the national and international
levels are essential for sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth, sustainable development and the eradicationof poverty and hunger.”
(c) As part of the preparatorywork for the Third Conference on Financing for Development, to be held inAddis Ababa in July 2015, ECLAC hosted
the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Consultation on Financing for Development in March 2015. The working document presented by
ECLAC, “Financing for Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: a strategic analysis from a middle-income country perspective”
mentions, among its conclusions, that the post-2015 development agendawill bring a profound transformation in sustainable development andwill
require a vast mobilization of resources, along with a change in their funding, organization and allocation, that meeting the goals will entail
mobilizing both public and private resources, that the capabilities for accessing private financing vary among the Latin American and Caribbean
countries, that the changes in the financial landscape increase the complexity of combining the various financing options, that greater access to
external resources must be complemented and balancedwith improved domestic resource mobilization, that mobilizing domestic resources means
more than mobilizing fiscal resources alone, and that the mobilization of domestic resources through fiscal means should be complemented by
strengthening the role of development banks.
3.
Countries of the European Union are now examining and taking steps to optimize their health care and pharmaceutical models and, in particular,
pharmaceutical spending and itsweight inhealth spending, andmeasures in this areawill need tobe addressed in light of that experience. Followup to
thisPMalso requires spendingon sexual and reproductivehealth tobeanalysed as apercentageof health spending andof social public spending.
4. This measure is associatedwith SDG target 3c,”Increase substantially health financing and the recruitment, development and training and retention of the
healthworkforce indeveloping countries, especially in least developed countries and small islanddevelopingStates”.
