Health and SDGs

One of the key roles of the World Health Organization (WHO) is to monitor global health trends. The World Health Statistics series, published annually since 2005, is WHO’s annual snapshot of the state of the world’s health. In 2015, countries adopted the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), each of which has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. The SDGs include one health goal and over 50 health-related targets which are applicable to all countries, irrespective of their level of development.  Tehe World health statistics 2018 edition,  contains the latest available data for 36 health-related SDG indicators.

Health is centrally positioned within the 2030 agenda, with a comprehensive goal: SDG3 (ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages) which includes 13 targets covering all mayor priorities,  and with crucial linkages with all the other SDGs. This means that to ensure health monitoring, closer collaboration between health and other sectors is essential, which should provide regular data. In 2015 only 70 countries currently provide WHO with regular data on mortality by age, sex and cause of death, which are required for more than a dozen SDG indicators.

The Agenda emphasizes the interlinked nature of all of the various goals, and that is possible to provide an overview of the global situation and trends using a limited number of reliable indicators, however it also underlined that more work is required to fully integrate monitoring the health dimensions in other goals.