What Next for Financing Social Protection and Health Services?

The United Nations General Assembly agreed to convene a fourth international conference on financing for development (FfD4) in Spain in 2025. The starting point in the preparations for FfD4 is the political commitments in two important international documents, beginning with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA), the agreed outcome document of FfD3 in 2015. That wide-ranging Agenda focused in its paragraph 12 on improving delivery of “social protection and essential public services for all,” with a strong commitment to universal access to quality social benefits and services. 

Unfortunately, as the paper will remind readers, the world is far from attaining USP or UHC. A challenge for FfD4 is to capture political momentum and use it to strengthen and extend the financing of essential social policies and systems. In fact, different facets of domestic financing and international cooperation involved in meeting this challenge have been under discussion in various forums in recent years. A number of measures have already been agreed or might be realized with an additional political commitment. This paper seeks to encourage consideration and endorsement of such measures so that Member States can deliver the warranted benefits and services to their people on a sustained and assured basis.