The world has made significant progress in global health over the past two decades, with millions gaining access to essential services and a decline in maternal and child mortality. However, despite this progress, the momentum towards universal health coverage (UHC) has stalled, with 4.6 billion people still lacking access to essential health services in 2023. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed weaknesses in health systems, and economic pressures, demographic change, and the climate crisis are stretching these systems beyond their limits.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to achieve UHC by 2030, but the world is not on track to meet this target. According to the UHC global monitoring report 2025, the global UHC service coverage index will remain below 80, and close to 1 in 4 people globally will continue to face health-related financial hardship in 2030. This is not because UHC is unachievable, but because the systems designed to deliver it have not kept pace with the complexity and scale of today’s health challenges.
Digital health offers a transformational opportunity to regain momentum towards UHC. The rapid evolution of digital technologies can strengthen primary health care, improve service quality, support health workers, and extend care to underserved communities. However, the promise of digital health will only be realized if countries create the right conditions for it to succeed. This requires political leadership, legislation, regulation, financing, and accountability.
The Transform Health Roadmap, launched on December 12, 2025, provides a collective agenda for how digital transformation can accelerate progress towards UHC. Developed through an inclusive, multi-sector process, the Roadmap outlines a framework for creating an enabling environment for digital health solutions to succeed. It emphasizes the need for country-owned, people-centered, and equitable digital transformation, and positions UHC and digital transformation as inherently political commitments.
The next five years will be crucial in determining whether the world moves closer to health for all or whether inequalities deepen further. By adopting and implementing the Roadmap to 2030, countries can strengthen their foundations for UHC, build resilient and future-ready health systems, and ensure that digital transformation contributes to the promise of the SDGs. With the right political will, aligned investments, strong governance, and an unwavering commitment to equity and inclusion, digital health can help deliver on the promise of UHC by 2030.
