Making Sense of the Metrics

Challenges of Measuring Progress towards Universal Health Coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals

In the latest ‘Conversation on Health Policy‘ Prof T Sundararaman and Dr Siyam Amani explore the two principal indicators of progress or otherwise towards universal health coverage (UHC). Their conversation addresses some of the technical challenges involved in the measurement of progress in health systems strengthening.

In Part 2 of the post, Prof Sundar offers a political analysis of the metrics of the SDGs. He concludes:

“The indicators related to the 9 main targets of SDG3 are potentially feasible and useful. However, as of now, many of these are dependent on the estimates and analysis of global institutions and not measurable independently at the national or sub-national level. The indicators of the supplementary health systems targets are entirely based on national sources of information, but many give only a very incomplete picture of the objective.”