Striving for SRHR within UHC - Who? How? When?
Commitment description:Adolescents are the most important target group for Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) within Universal Health Coverage (UHC). We believe that SRHR should be prioritised within the quest towards UHC, and should be among the first services to become universally accessible. There should be a particular focus on ensuring access for adolescents, given the particularly sensitive age bracket that this encompasses – thus adolescents need to have the knowledge, access and right to control their own fertility within UHC. Leave no one behind - Pursue inclusion and equity in access to quality health services. We propose an increased focus on inclusion with an emphasis on intersectionality within UHC. We believe that the poorest and most marginalised have a right and a need to access SRH services most urgently and therefore should be prioritised in order to reach the furthest behind first. Those who face intersecting barriers related to gender or identity most urgently need to benefit from UHC. This is particularly acute in humanitarian emergencies. Domestic Resource Mobilisation (DRM) as a vital method to secure sustainable financing for UHC - we believe that governments have a duty to use progressive taxation and to ensure public investment in key areas that contribute to the realisation of women’s rights and achievement of UHC. National governments should increase their investment in health and meet global commitments such as AU’s Abuja 15% of annual budget to health, or up to 5% of annual GDP as government health care expenditure. A key way to achieve this is through fair macro-economic fiscal policies including progressive and gender sensitive taxation, and by tackling tax evasion and avoidance. Equitable global macroeconomic decision-making - International Financial Institutions (IFIs) continue to set the global financial policy agenda which prioritises fiscal discipline and reducing the tax burden on companies.
Mode of engagement:
- Programmatic actionWe will continue to work through our health programmes to advocate for DRM which facilitates a speedy and comprehensive achievement of UHC with a prioritisation of SRHR for adolescents, thus working towards reducing maternal death and morbidity.
Achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health as a part of universal health coverage (UHC)(3) Zero preventable maternal deaths and maternal morbidities, such as obstetric fistulas, by, inter alia, integrating a comprehensive package of sexual and reproductive health interventions, including access to safe abortion to the full extent of the law, measures for preventing and avoiding unsafe abortions, and for the provision of post-abortion care, into national UHC strategies, policies and programmes, and to protect and ensure all individuals’ right to bodily integrity, autonomy and reproductive rights, and to provide access to essential services in support of these rights.
