As more countries strive to achieve universal health coverage (UHC), the question of how to measure their progress is receiving more scrutiny. At the recent African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) conference, the HFG Health Financing Lead, Dr. Laurel Hatt, shared findings from three country case studies that offer new insights..

The case studies, conducted in Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire, and Senegal, explore how these countries are currently measuring progress toward UHC, and examine each country’s capacity to generate and monitor a set of proposed UHC indicators that are being considered for global use by the WHO. Dr. Hatt also highlighted potential new indicators proposed by stakeholders in these countries as well as pointed to challenges and opportunities for tracking progress toward UHC. Dr. Hatt recommended that countries prioritize feasible, direct indicators that measure the services and people covered by UHC mechanisms.

The AfHEA conference, which was held this year in Nairobi, Kenya from March 11-13, is the largest meeting of African health economists, finance experts and policy experts. It also attracts large numbers of health systems practitioners from across Africa.

For more information about Dr. Hatt’s findings, download the presentation “How to measure UHC: Presentation of ongoing work by teams from the Global Network for Health Equity, USAID, and WHO/World Bank” here.