Health and sustainable development conversation

Health and sustainable development conversation identifies possible areas where technical assistance from the health sector may be required to support health-related work areas of sustainable development goals. We identify important areas we consider have been missed out and propose possible new cross-cutting sustainable development goal targets, as appropriate. We highlight the need for the World Health Organization to take a stronger leadership role in food safety standards and guidelines and to ensure that the sustainable development goals consider food safety more seriously, and include appropriate targets. We discuss traditional medicine, which is a cross-cutting issue in most sustainable development goals and suggest new relevant sustainable development goals target. We discuss how health underpins sustainable development, international trade, international peace and security. In this conversation, we promote the need for strengthening consultations and cooperation, better focussed leadership to development a convention on universal health coverage. We suggest a framework on how this can be done and what the expected benefits would be. The Right to health, the triad health strategy, mom and ANDI model centres of excellence in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, the Pacific and China to foster innovation in health are discussed.