The recent Covid-19 pandemic has exposed weak health systems worldwide. The global health community must prioritise investing in health system strengthening, starting with surgery.  

It is well documented that surgery is essential to achieving Universal Health Coverage and health-related SDGs, yet it's under-funded and often overlooked. Investing in surgical care could avert 17 million deaths — a number six times greater than the annual number of deaths from HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.

We will campaign governments, private donors and organisations to divert funding from vertical interventions to surgical care, and therefore health systems strengthening, worldwide.

A strong workforce is essential to building independent and sustainable healthcare systems, yet a shortage of 18 million healthcare workers is estimated worldwide by 2030.

For decades, global health organisations have focussed on mission work, which has developed aid dependency and resulted in little investment for increasing local surgical workforces. 

Low- and middle-income countries have only 19% of the global surgical workforce yet see 80% per cent of worldwide deaths from noncommunicable diseases. 

We will campaign to increase funding to train and employ local surgical workforces, so that they can care for their own communities. 

National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anaesthesia Plans (NSOAPs) are essential to creating roadmaps detailing how surgical care could be improved in individual countries. 

We will work with surgical care providers, governments, partners and patients to embed NSOAPs within a country's government’s broader plans to create stronger health systems. 

We will also advocate for more funding to the development and implementation of NSOAPs. 

For years, donors have hijacked global health governance leaving the recipients unable to dictate their own priorities, needs and policies. Their voices haven't been heard and their needs have been ignored. 

We will work with local experts, policy makers, governments and civil society organisations to ensure that people on the ground have their voices heard, with a special focus on youth and grassroots organisations. 

We will continuously monitor development assistance for health (DAH) to ensure funding is diverted to surgery and health systems strengthening (using the WHO building blocks health system framework).

We will analyse the data to promote, influence, and advocate for the role surgical care plays in achieving Universal Health Coverage.