(with thanks to Jackeline Alger, lead moderator of HIFA-Spanish)
Most countries make progress towards universal health coverage, but major challenges remain, WHO–World Bank report finds
6 December 2025 News release
https://www.who.int/news/item/06-12-2025-most-countries-make-progress-to...
Since 2000, most countries – across all income levels and regions – have made concurrent progress in expanding health service coverage and reducing the financial hardship associated with health costs, according to a new joint report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank Group. These two indicators are the foundation of universal health coverage (UHC) – the global commitment that everyone, everywhere can access the care they need without financial hardship by 2030.
The UHC Global Monitoring Report 2025 shows that health service coverage, measured by the Service Coverage Index (SCI), rose from 54 to 71 points between 2000 and 2023. Meanwhile, the share of people experiencing financial hardship due to large and impoverishing out-of-pocket (OOP) health payments declined from 34% to 26% between 2000 and 2022.
However, the report cautions that the poorest populations continue to bear the greatest burden of unaffordable health costs, with 1.6 billion people further pushed into poverty. Overall, an estimated 4.6 billion people worldwide still lack access to essential health services and 2.1 billion people experience financial hardship to access health care, including the 1.6 billion people living in poverty or pushed deeper into it due to health expenses...
Achieving the UHC goal by 2030 is central to realizing the human right to health. With five years remaining on the SDG agenda, urgent action is now needed to drive progress. The report underscores the critical role of political commitment in every country and community, and calls for action in six core areas:
1. ensure essential health care is free at the point of care for people living in poverty and vulnerable situations;
2. expand public investments in health systems;
3. address high out-of-pocket spending on medicines;
4. accelerate access to essential NCD services, especially as the disease burden rises;
5. strengthen primary health care to promote equity and efficiency; and
6. adopt multisectoral approaches, recognizing that determinants of health and UHC drivers extend beyond the health sector.
COMMENT (NPW): I would propose the single most important action would be 5. strengthen primary health care to promote equity and efficiency. The focus should be on identifying and addressing the basic needs of primary health workers, which HIFA has described with the acronym SEISMIC. https://www.hifa.org/about-hifa/hifa-universal-health-coverage-and-human... This includes the goal of unversal access to reliable healthcare information: Every health worker and every patient should be empowered with the reliable healthcare information they need to protect their own health and the health of others. This can only be achieved by strengthening the global evidence ecosystem https://www.hifa.org/about-hifa
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org