Ethiopian's Primary Health Care: Successes and Challenges towards Universal Health Coverage

Many global health institutions, including the World Health Organization, consider primary health care (PHC) as the path toward achieving universal health coverage (UHC). However, there remain concerns about the feasibility and effectiveness of this approach in low-resource countries. Ethiopia has been implementing the PHC approach since the mid-1970s. Implementation of the PHC approach in Ethiopia has been possible through policies, strategies, and programs, including community empowerment and multisectoral action. These strategies have enabled the country to increase health services coverage and improve the population’s health status. However, key challenges remain to be addressed, including inadequate coverage of services, inequity of access, slow health-systems transition to provide services for noncommunicable diseases, inadequate quality of care, and high out-of-pocket expenditure. To resolve gaps in the health system and beyond, the country needs to improve its domestic financing for health and target disadvantaged locations and populations. These challenges need to be addressed through the whole sustainable development agenda.