Moving toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC)—increasing access to good quality health services with financial protection—is accepted as an important objective for all health systems around the world, as evidenced by its inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as goal 3.8. Despite popular support for UHC, lack of progress on both increasing service coverage (SDG 3.8.1) and financial protection (SDG 3.8.2) raises concerns about the ability and commitment of countries to accelerate progress on the UHC targets by 2030.Citation1 This situation calls for health reforms that promote UHC by increasing utilization relative to need, quality of care, and financial protection. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic and increasingly frequent climate-related shocks demonstrate that health systems across the world remain fragile and insufficiently prepared to respond to emerging threats.Citation2 Health systems need strengthening to move toward UHC in the face of demographic, epidemiological, economic, political, and ecological changes, and making these changes can contribute to them becoming stronger and more resilient to withstand current and future threats to population health. ….more
