Launch of the ECLAC-PAHO Special Report 2024: the urgency of investing in health systems in Latin America and the Caribbean to reduce inequality and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

Background

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) publish this third report in a scenario that imposes various challenges for the fulfillment of the commitments established in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The multiple challenges inherited from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the development crisis that Latin America and the Caribbean are going through have caused significant setbacks in the Sustainable Development Goals and key health indicators. Likewise, great challenges remain to achieve the goals of universal access to health, along with problems of chronic underfinancing, fragmentation and segmentation of the health systems of the countries of the region, which generate problems of sufficiency, access, equity, efficiency and coordination. The above interacts with the social determinants of health, directly affecting people’s well-being and expanding inequalities and vulnerability of certain population groups.

In this context, ECLAC and PAHO raise the need to carry out reforms in health systems to guarantee access to timely and quality health, strengthening the institutional capacity to respond and adapt to both current and future health emergencies. and coordinate with social protection systems, guaranteeing the right to health and leaving no one behind. Primary health care is considered a strategic dimension for this necessary transformation, together with the increase in public investment in health until it reaches at least 6% of the gross domestic product (GDP), directing 30% of this to primary care. of health. This must go hand in hand with the financial sustainability of the health system in terms of coverage and adequacy of benefits.

With only six years to go before the deadline established to meet the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the implementation of effective and efficient measures is urgently needed to recover lost progress and return to the path of sustainable development.

The event will be moderated by María Luisa Marinho, Social Affairs Officer of the Social Development Division of ECLAC.