Tools and approaches to operationalize the commitment to equity, gender and human rights: towards leaving no one behind in the Sustainable Development Goals

ABSTRACT

The objective of this article is to present specific resources developed by the World Health Organization on equity, gender and human rights in order to support Member States in operationalizing their commitment to leave no one behind in the health Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and other health-related goals and targets. The resources cover: (i) health inequality monitoring; (ii) barrier analysis using mixed methods; (iii) human rights monitoring; (iv) leaving no one behind in national and subnational health sector planning; and (v) equity, gender and human rights in national health programme reviews. Examples of the application of the tools in a range of country contexts are provided for each resource.

KEYWORDS:

• Health equity
• gender
• human rights
• Sustainable Development Goals

Responsible Editor Nawi Ng, Umeå University, Sweden.

Special Issue Monitoring Health Inequality in Indonesia

Responsible Editor Nawi Ng, Umeå University, Sweden.

Special Issue Monitoring Health Inequality in Indonesia

Acknowledgments

WHO is very grateful to the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) for its technical and financial support to the project ‘Operationalizing a Human Rights, Gender and Equity-based Approach to Health Service Delivery’, which made possible the development of some of the tools mentioned in this article.

Disclosure statement

The authors alone are responsible for the views expressed in this paper; they do not necessarily represent the views, decisions, or policies of the World Health Organization.

Ethics and consent

Not required.

Paper context

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) insufficiently addressed equality and the reduction of inequalities, focused on aggregated information, did not tackle within-country inequalities and had a weak human rights approach. The formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) pointed out the need to fill these gaps. This paper briefly describes resources co-developed by the WHO Secretariat and Member States on equity, gender and human rights for supporting countries in operationalizing their commitment to leaving no one behind in the health SDGs, and other health-related goals and targets.

Additional information

Funding

None.

Notes on contributors

Gerardo Zamora

All authors contributed substantially and equally to the development of this article and approved its final version.