Scaling Integrated Primary Health Care for Universal Health Coverage: Challenges and Opportunities

Athulya Pallipurath
Aug 12
3 min read

On June 24, 2025, the Infectious Disease Alliance (IDA) and its newly launced Primary Healthcare Coalition (PHCC), hosted the webinar “Scaling Integrated Primary Health Care for Universal Health Coverage: Challenges and Opportunities”, to explore strategies for scaling integrated primary health care systems to achieve universal health coverage (UHC).

The event convened experts from across disciplines and provided a platform to discuss evidence-based innovations, best practices, and collaborative approaches for overcoming challenges.

Key topics

Strengthening Primary Health Care for increased coverage of high impact interventions to reach every Child
Addressing disparities in access through a primary health care approach: Action to include persons with disabilities
Challenges and Opportunities in Scaling Integrated Primary Healthcare

Speakers

Ann Robins - Senior Health Advisor, Primary Health Care and Health Systems, UNICEF
Julius Rosenhan- Policy Advisor – Health, Sightsavers
Boniface Mbuthia, Technical Director of Healthcare Financing, AMREF Africa

Highlights & takeaways

Ann Robins highlighted the need to shift from disease-specific interventions to integrated health system strengthening. She noted that while vertical programs reduced child mortality and stunting until 2010, progress has since slowed due to population growth, workforce shortages, and systemic challenges like conflict and poor WASH conditions. She outlined UNICEF’s approach, which includes embedded advocacy, task shifting, implementation research, and use of emergency funds for long-term impact. She also emphasized efforts to strengthen national supply chains through maturity assessments and to empower community health workers via the Community Health Delivery Partnership.

Julius Rosenhan emphasized the critical importance of embedding disability inclusion within the health system strengthening efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Drawing from his work with WHO and Sightsavers, he highlighted that nearly 1.3 billion people—1 in 6 globally—live with disabilities, yet they face persistent systemic barriers in accessing health services. These challenges stem not from impairments themselves, but from structural inequities, stigmatization, poor infrastructure, lack of disaggregated data, and the absence of disability considerations in policy and planning.

Boniface Mbuthia emphasized the need for a system-focused, integrated approach to Primary Health Care (PHC) in the drive toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC). He highlighted how health systems in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Africa, continue to face fragmentation, underfunding, and inequality—challenges compounded by low domestic financing and reliance on external aid or out-of-pocket spending. Drawing on the case of Kenya’s integration of HIV care into PHC, Boniface illustrated the benefits of decentralization, community engagement, and coordinated service delivery models like the hub-and-spoke approach.

Q&A session

Moderated by the Primary Healthcare Coalition Manager, the session showcased a variety of queries from the below topics:

Data Quality, Visibility, and Use in Integrated PHC
Strengthening Country-Led Systems Amid Political Challenges
Role and Sustainability of Community Health Workers (CHWs)

Key statistics

Registered attendees: 26
Live participants: 18
Geographic reach: Africa and Europe

Looking ahead

IDA and PHCC will continue its commitment through:

Post-event reporting and resource sharing
Creating a multi-stakeholder network for sustained dialogue
Organizing a World Health Summit side event in October 2025

Call to action

IDA and PHCC urges the global community to:

Embed PHC in UHC commitments with equity-focused targets.
Scale financing mechanisms for integrated, community-led PHC delivery.
Prioritize R&D funding for scalable, digital, and context-specific PHC innovations.
Support data systems, surveillance, and interoperability to strengthen early detection and response.