Devex: Opinion: There is no road to UHC without gender equality and women’s empowerment
Ann Keeling, senior fellow at Women in Global Health and chair of Age International; Roopa Dhatt, executive director and co-founder of Women in Global Health; and Lippi Doshi, global health and development communications consultant

“…The WHO Secretariat and member states responded to the call for action on gender equality in [universal health coverage (UHC)]. Here are five things we hope to see beyond the 144th [WHO Executive Board (EB)] meeting: 1. Address gender equality and women’s empowerment at the 2019 U.N. High-Level Meeting on UHC … 2. Greater commitment for gender parity from WHO’s Executive Board … 3. A gender transformative investment in the current and future worldwide health workforce has [a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)] Dividend … 4. An inclusivity advisory and oversight group for WHO, a key recommendation of the WHO Civil Society Task Force … 5. WHO remains active in addressing root inequities that impact health for all, such as SDG5, by establishing an accelerator in the SDG3 Global Action Plan … We hope member states continue to respond to our call to action on gender equality. Addressing gender equality is central to every aspect of global health, and every item listed on the WHO EB meeting agenda rests on getting it right” (2/1).