Mutuals have an important role to play in achieving universal health coverage. Eric Chenut, President of Mutualité Française, spoke in New York at the UN multi-stakeholder hearing on universal health coverage on 9 May to represent the position of the mutualist movement at this meeting, which is an integral part of the preparation of the UN high-level meeting on universal health coverage that will take place on 21 September.

Eric Chenut: “We advocate for the recognition of the mutualist movement and its role in achieving Universal Health Coverage.”

Loek Caubo: “We are proud that Eric Chenut, President of the FNMF, founding member of AIM, was able to speak on behalf of AIM on a subject as important as universal health care. Mutuals are driving forces and are convinced of the effectiveness of international solidarity in the field of health”.

AIM has also recently become a partner of UHC2030, a multi-stakeholder platform set up by the World Health Organisation, the OECD and the World Bank to promote global and national collaboration on health systems strengthening and to feed into stakeholder contributions in the run-up to the UN High Level Meeting in September.

AIM supports the UHC2030 goals of leaving no one behind, ensuring innovative, safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable health care, while calling for its own goals of access to high quality, equal and non-discriminatory health care to become a reality.

You can find Mr Chenut’s speech in New York below (translated from French).

« Thank you Mr. President,

Your Excellency,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am speaking in my capacity as President of the Mutualité Française, on behalf of the Association Internationale de la Mutualité, an organisation active in universal social protection and health with a history of more than a century of commitment, by and for citizens, on health issues;

We are convinced of the effectiveness of international solidarity in health.

The Association Internationale de la Mutualité, a new partner of UHC2030, federates several hundred mutuals, protecting 240 million people in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

Mutuals are community-based partnerships by and for people, that are integral part of the social movement. They promote effective access to full health by financing individual health care in a collective, non-profit and democratic manner, and by carrying out preventive and health promotion activities for the population in their territories.

On the basis of our values and our history, we call on States to recognise that only solidarity and non-profit orientation are capable of giving the greatest number of people access to health protection, and that mutual societies fully meet these criteria.

We also call on States and international organisations to take account of mutual health insurance as a means of covering and sharing social risks, in line with national social protection mechanisms.

Considering the 2019 Political Declaration, whose calls for international funding and the inclusion of civil society we support;

Considering also the adoption of the recent United Nations Resolution for “The promotion of the social and solidarity economy for sustainable development”,

Your Excellency,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We plead for the recognition of the mutualist movement and its role in achieving Universal Health Coverage! »