WHO lays out plans for financing new global health goal: to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

WHO is urging countries to move towards universal health coverage (UHC) and to scale up international investment in catalytic development funding. The call comes as world leaders convene in Ethiopia, for the Third UN Financing for Development Conference, to discuss ways to pay for the new Sustainable Development Goals, to be launched in New York in September 2015.

“The best way to assure meaningful progress towards the new global health goal is for countries to move closer to universal health coverage,” says Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General.

Many countries will need help to generate the funding to do this. This week’s conference focus on strengthening international cooperation to build developing countries’ capacity to improve domestic tax policy and revenue collection as well as efforts to reduce illicit financial flows and tax avoidance at the international level.