Strengthening primary health care in Ethiopia: A scoping review of successes, challenges, and pathways towards universal health coverage using the WHO monitoring framework

Abstract

The ultimate goal of primary health care (PHC), as a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, is to achieve the highest level of health by bringing health services closer to the users. This entails that PHC should be viewed as the all-inclusive strategy to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) of the sustainable development goals (SDG). Ethiopia has been implementing PHC since the Alma-Ata Declaration. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently released a PHC Monitoring Framework to support the monitoring of progress in PHC implementation. However, an evidence gap highlights the need for studies investigating PHC progress towards UHC using this progress monitoring framework. This study aims to evaluate Ethiopia’s PHC system using the WHO PHC monitoring framework and identify successes and challenges towards UHC and health security.