GENEVA (ILO News) – On International Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day, the ILO reaffirmed its commitment to a rights-based approach to achieving health for all. Throughout 2025, the organization collaborated with governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations, and international partners to strengthen social health protection systems and support countries in advancing toward universal health coverage.
A major focus of the ILO’s work in 2025 was fostering multisectoral collaboration between the social protection and health sectors, aligned with SDG 1.3 on universal social protection and SDG 3.8 on universal health coverage. In partnership with WHO, the ILO organized a side event at the World Summit for Social Development in Doha, highlighting the health benefits of universal social protection and the role of social health protection in promoting intersectoral collaboration. This advocacy was reinforced through the ILO’s leadership in the P4H network, supported by the Swiss Development Cooperation Agency, which provides coherent technical support to low- and middle-income countries in building sustainable health systems.
In 2025, the ILO expanded its capacity-building initiatives on social health protection. New learning opportunities included a hybrid ILO-ITC course on addressing inequities in access to health care, the online Social Health Protection Toolkit launched on World Health Day, and a MOOC on Introduction to Social Health Protection, which has already reached over 1,000 participants. At the country level, the ILO strengthened partnerships in Nigeria and Tanzania, delivering trainings focused on coverage extension and scheme administration. South-south knowledge exchanges were facilitated through study tours, allowing representatives from Ethiopia, Senegal, and Zambia to observe Nepal’s implementation of the openIMIS management information system and reflect on digitalization strategies for their own social health protection systems.
The ILO also supported sustainable financing for social health protection by enhancing countries’ capacities for evidence-based decision-making. In Ethiopia, it assessed the financial sustainability of community-based health insurance in Addis Ababa, including coverage for refugees. In Peru, the ILO strengthened actuarial capacities for health financing modelling as part of the Global Ratification Campaign on C102. In Burkina Faso and Zambia, national institutions received technical support in using the ILO/HEALTH actuarial model to anticipate the effects of policy changes on health coverage and benefit adequacy.
To further strengthen knowledge toward universal coverage, the ILO released two key publications on International Universal Health Coverage Day. A working paper on Universal Health Insurance Schemes provides a comparative analysis of implementation features in ten low- and middle-income countries, focusing on inclusion of people living in poverty and informal workers. An ILO Brief on Social Health Protection and the Informal Economy offers guidance on designing and implementing mechanisms that effectively reach workers in the informal sector and their families.
