Health in the post-2015 United Nations Development Agenda

This paper evaluates health as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in the context of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, between 2012 and 2014. Health was part of the debate since the Millennium Summit and the MDGs (2000), and it also appears in the documents discussing the Post-2015 Agenda, from the Rio+20 to the Open Working Group (OWG), whose report was submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) 2014-2015, and in the Global Consultation on Health and the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons reports. The Authors concluded that the treatment of health in all these documents is uniform. They point out that the scope of the health-related SDG is very comprehensive, but its targets are conceptually fragmented and reduced. They advocate their change as to include not only the idea of social determinants of health, but also targets in the field of public health, which were not included in the proposal of the OWG. They also warn that the global and national governance systems need to be reformed and advocate more participation of the civil society, which can influence diplomacy, which, in turn, will be responsible for the agreement signed at the UNGA in 2015.

Health Priorities; Sustainable Development; World Health