Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day on December 12 reminds us that health is a fundamental human right. Today, 2 billion people are struggling to afford healthcare and 1.3 billion are falling into poverty due to out-of-pocket expenses. For women and girls, these financial barriers often mean missing out on critical nutrition services, leading to poorer health and reinforcing cycles of illness and poverty. Integrating nutrition into UHC is key to breaking this cycle and protecting those most in need. But achieving UHC is impossible without addressing the vital role of nutrition—especially for women and girls—in creating healthier, more equitable communities.
Women and Girls Are Key
Malnutrition disproportionately affects women and girls. It impacts their health across their entire life, putting them at higher risk for infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases, and maternal and neonatal deaths. Their poor nutrition bears generational consequences, predicting low birthweight, stunting and wasting in their children. It undermines their educational and financial potential: over 1 billion women and girls face micronutrient deficiencies, including anemia, which hinders learning potential, educational attainment, and productivity. Progress on reducing malnutrition and the gender nutrition gap has stalled and few global nutrition targets will be met.
Nutrition Services: Affordable, Effective, Essential
Nutrition interventions—including micronutrient supplementation, therapeutic feeding, and breastfeeding support—save lives and yield high returns. Every dollar invested generates $4 to $35 in benefits by reducing disease and improving productivity. Scaling up these services, especially in fragile settings, can transform lives and communities. But scaling up these services needs to be done with the government’s support with financial protection measures. While most countries include nutrition in their health policies, many fail to provide adequate resources for scaling these interventions. The result? Nutrition services often remain underfunded and inaccessible to those who need them most, leaving women and girls alone in paying for those interventions. UHC will remain elusive until governments adequately invest in protecting people – particularly the most vulnerable among us – from impoverishing health spending.
This UHC Day, we urge policymakers to:
– Prioritize nutrition in UHC plans, ensuring equitable access to essential nutrition actions.
– Reach the most vulnerable: expand services for women and girls in low-income and emergency settings.
– Invest in proven interventions: allocate resources to scale up effective nutrition programs.
By addressing the gender nutrition gap, we can move closer to a world where health and opportunity are rights enjoyed by all, not privileges for a few.