Could private provision be the key to delivering universal health coverage?

This World Health Day, themed “My Health, My Right,” focuses on the global ambition to see universal access to needed health services without financial hardship, a goal far from being achieved. Recent WHO data suggest that improvements in health service delivery coverage have stagnated since 2015. At the heart of the issue is inequity. Health services are still more accessible in wealthier, developed nations and within more affluent and educated urban communities in low- and middle-income countries. The right focus for debate is not whether private providers remain relevant but how they can best complement national healthcare goals. In private, not-for-profit healthcare systems like the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), which run almost 900 health centres and 30 hospitals in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, fees are reinvested in the hospital or health system to better respond to the needs of the local community. Many real-world examples demonstrate the success of this approach. One of AKDN’s partners, La Chaîne de l’Espoir, has made high-end medical-surgical expertise available in more than 30 countries since 1994, saving thousands of lives and transmitting critical knowledge to local medical teams. In Syria and Afghanistan, AKDN has supported struggling public health systems through recent crises, ensuring provision where public services were absent and bolstering capacity to deal with mass casualties and disease outbreaks.