Martyn Day – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Martyn Day on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will press for an amendment of the current indicator for health within the Sustainable Development Goals, to ensure it accurately measures coverage of health services and financial risk protection.

Mr Desmond Swayne

There are 25 proposed indicators for the health goal; the coverage of health services is included within these as is a measure relating to health financing. The United Nations Statistical Commission has asked the Inter-Agency Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators to take forward further work on the indicator framework, including a review of the indicator on health financing due to the concerns over its ability to measure financial risk protection in its current form. The UK supported the request for review.