UHC means that all people and communities can use the promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship.

Under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Nation States at the United Nations (UN) have agreed to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030. UHC is a normative concept, guiding health system reforms, to ensure equity and financial protection for all in need of health services.
The high-level political declaration on UHC at the UN calls on the Nation States to recognize the importance of the private in the development, implementation and evaluation of health related policies and gauge their contribution towards UHC. The role of the private sector is especially important in low- and middle income countries like Pakistan, where it is the predominant platform for service delivery. In these countries, despite its preeminence, the private sector’s potential in evidence synthesis and its contribution towards socio-culturally informed training and development is underutilized. The ambitious UHC agenda would require the public and the private sectors to work in unison.  Progress towards UHC necessitates the role of the private sector in driving the UHC agenda as an equal partner with the public sector. The School of Universal Health Coverage is born out of this conviction.

The School of Universal Health Coverage (SUHC), at Global Institute of Human Development (GIHD), Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University (STMU) is the first of its kind institute globally. Couched in a university academic setting and linked with a tertiary care teaching hospital, SUHC plans to establish certificate, diploma and degree programmes by inviting the best faculty from within STMU and outside including regional and global experts.

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