A selection of leading global health experts answers questions from Ilona Kickbusch on global health challenges.

Ala Alwan, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean

A dedicated Goal 3 aims to “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”, and is underpinned by 13 targets that cover a wide spectrum of global health areas. However, the fact that most of the seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs) are directly linked to health or indirectly contribute to health is an achievement in itself. In the new SDGs, health is considered as a major contributor to, and beneficiary of, sustainable development.

The world faces existing and emerging challenges that have serious implications for health, including rising inequalities within and between countries; escalating conflict and violence; increased population displacement and migration; and substantial demographic and epidemiological changes. This has led to a major shift in health patterns over the past two decades. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are now the world’s leading cause of premature mortality. In WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Region, 2.2 million lives are lost annually to NCDs and over 50% of the lives lost to NCDs are premature (before the age of 70). The health targets of the SDGs offer key interventions to address the challenge of noncommunicable diseases. Goal 3 NCD-related targets are generally consistent with the global NCD target developed in response to the historic 2011 high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on the prevention and control of NCDs. 

Universal health coverage cuts across all of the health goals, providing an overall framework for the implementation of a comprehensive agenda in all countries.

Recognizing that humanitarian crises and disease outbreaks are a major threat to sustainable development, health security plays a more prominent role in the SDG agenda. In line with the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005), the SDGs emphasize the need to support countries to detect and manage health risks, build resilient health systems, and protect the most vulnerable populations.

Now that the United Nations has endorsed the new set of sustainable development goals, WHO will align its strategies and targets with these, where necessary. Both Member States and WHO will need to work on integrating the commitments of the health goal into their national health development plans. One key priority for all Member States will be to strengthen their health information systems to generate reliable data necessary for policy development, monitoring, and evaluation. Of particular importance is reinforcing civil registration and vital statistics systems.

Marleen Temmerman, Director, Department of Reproductive Health and Research, WHO

Key achievements in the SDG agenda are: visible improvement of indicators in health, primary education and, extreme poverty reduction; the power of partnerships, the unprecedented reduction of child and maternal mortality. However, much more needs to be done to reduce inequalities, and to increase women empowerment. There are no magic bullets, but also no excuses!

Simon Wright, Head of Child Survival, Save the Children

The SDGs have taken a long time to negotiate and it is still not over; the indicators will be agreed in March next year. There is plenty to celebrate and plenty that could be better. The SDGs are more ambitious and more comprehensive than the Millennium Development Goals and, crucially, are meant to apply to all sectors of society, putting an obligation on states to address health inequalities. SDG3 has a long list of health priorities, the result of the many interest groups in our sector. It is more ambitious than the MDGs for targets on maternal and child mortality, reproductive health and infectious diseases. It includes non-communicable diseases, drug problems, and infectious disease outbreaks. Target 3.8 may turn out to be the most transformative: “Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection”. Through this, governments have taken steps to structure and finance their health systems so that all people can receive essential services without leaving it to the chance of who can afford cash. The movement for UHC is already unstoppable where citizens demand the right to quality healthcare and governments are responding. The SDGs should encourage the international community to support countries to do this.