Civil Society Engagement Mechanism Declaration

This year's World Health Day on 7 April focuses on 'Universal health coverage: everyone, everywhere' - ensuring that everyone, everywhere can access essential quality health services without facing financial hardship.

UHC should ensure that, by 2030, all people in all communities have equitable access to essential quality preventive, curative and palliative health services, medicines and vaccines, of sufficient quality to be effective, without experiencing financial hardship.

For the Civil Society Engagement Mechanism (CSEM) in UHC2030, this is a key opportunity to increase momentum behind UHC and support the WHO campaign on UHC.

The role of the CSEM in UHC2030 is ensure diverse and representative civil society voices are heard, in order to better inform UHC policies. CSEM will focus on ensuring UHC policies are inclusive and equitable, and that systematic attention is given to the most marginalised and vulnerable communities so that no one is left behind. 

This is being done through:

• - Influencing policy design and implementation
• - Lobbying for participatory and inclusive policy development and implementation processes
• - Strengthening citizen-led social accountability mechanisms
• - Promoting coordination between CSO platforms and networks working on health-related issues at the national, regional and global levels
• - Enabling civil society to have a voice in the UHC2030 movement 

Read the CSEM declaration:

The declaration reflects the diversity of the CSO constituency, and captures many of the wide-ranging views of the members of the newly formed Civil Society Engagement Mechanism in UHC2030. It marks the beginning of CSO engagement with UHC2030, and will evolve as the work towards universal health coverage expands.

On the Road to UHC: Leave No One Behind "- A civil society organisation (CSO) perspective on how UHC can be reached by 2030

The CSEM encourages everyone to use and help disseminate this declaration widely, in advocacy efforts to your government and partners you may be working with. This could include the use of social media such as Twitter during World Health Day. 

The CSEM have created a number of tweets you can use in your World Health Day activities and more social media messages are available on the WHO website. UHC2030 also has a social media toolkit as part of its UHC Advocacy Guide. 

Please join us in tweeting the importance of universal health coverage for everyone everywhere. Add your voice from civil society by using some of these hashtags: #CSO4UHC #LeaveNoOneBehind #healthforall

Please do not hesitate to contact csem@msh.org if you would like more information about the CSEM or are interested in joining.