Lessons from case studies of social participation and its role in the pandemic response in the WHO South-East Asia Region, 2025

Overview

Meaningful engagement of populations in health policy is becoming more important, as reflected in the global commitment to meaningful participation in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and in the United Nations High-level Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage, which recognized that “people’s engagement, particularly of women and girls, families and communities, and the inclusion of all relevant stakeholders is one of the core components of health system governance”. To inform ministries of health and other decision-makers on key issues to be considered in designing participatory spaces, WHO published the Handbook on social participation for universal health coverage, which describes social participation as a means for including the voices of people systematically, either directly, through communities, or through civil society organizations (CSOs) into policy and decision-making for health.