The right to health is a fundamental human right to guarantee all people live in dignity. CARE is committed to amplifying equal and just access to health in the communities we work with.
We believe that everyone has both a right to health and reproductive self-determination. CARE International’s multi-dimensional health programs address barriers at the individual, social and structural level, and includes scaling up our existing expertise on epidemics and diseases to meet the ongoing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our goal is that by 2030, 50 million people can exercise their right to health. This includes 30 million women being able to exercise their right to sexual and reproductive health.
CARE International focuses on building resilient, equitable, and accountable health systems that can respond to shocks and crises and that provide sustainable access to quality health services for all.
Globally, the right to health is undermined by persistent economic and social inequities, as well as ongoing threats to health security posed by increases in the number, scale, scope, and duration of humanitarian disasters. Restrictive gender norms and gender inequalities are replicated and reinforced in health systems, contributing poorer outcomes for women and girls in their health and lived experiences.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many health systems were struggling to adequately meet the health needs, particularly the sexual and reproductive health needs, of the populations they were meant to serve. The pandemic’s impact has further strained these systems and put hard-won gains in health equity and gender justice at risk.
CARE International’s added value continues to be its equity and rights-based approach to health and health systems. We seek to:
Build assets and agency of women, girls, and other groups facing injustice
Change the power relations to enable collective voice and well-being
Transform health systems and structures to enable universal access to health
CARE International and partners have helped 43 million people in 38 countries exercise their rights to health, particularly for sexual and reproductive health. Looking ahead as part of our 2030 strategy, we aim to amplify our reach to 50 million people.
CARE International works with community groups and leaders and local health authorities to catalyze community-led collective action, mobilize public demand, and build institutional commitments and to change institutional practices and policies.
Our global health work focuses in four areas:
Strengthening local health systems and community-based organizations
Supporting marginalized population groups, especially adolescents, to exercise their right to health
Increasing access to quality health services, including sexual and reproductive health and rights services, in humanitarian and fragile settings
Preparing and responding to public health emergency preparedness
Read our Vision 2030 Impact Area Strategy for The Right to Health here.
CARE International’s Fast and Fair Vaccine initiative currently supports 22 countries in equitably delivering COVID-19 vaccines.
Since the initiative started, CARE International has worked to promote vaccine safety, organize vaccine delivery, train health workers and volunteers, help ensure access for people who need it most, and mobilize people to get the vaccine by helping those with no internet access register for vaccines and keep appointments.
That has resulted in 126 million people getting vaccinated in the places where CARE International is supporting vaccines. 263 million people have had access to accurate information on vaccines through mass media and tailored vaccine messages.
Daw Mohamed, CARE's Interim Country Director for West Bank and Gaza responds to the latest report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) on the severe food insecurity crisis in Gaza - highlighting the dire humanitarian situation as the conflict enters its ninth month.
Millions of people in Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Zambia are being driven towards starvation as a relentness drought tightens its grip across the Southern African region. CARE alongside the Human Science Research Council, FANRPAN, and Rural Women’s Assembly urged for international donor support to combat the worsening crisis.
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The cholera outbreak in Zambia has now surpassed 15,000 cases and 590 deaths. One of the factors leading to an increase in "Brought in Dead" cases has been the stigma attached to the disease, deterring individuals from seeking treatment.
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CARE, UNICEF, and the government of Bangladesh have worked to find ways to improve the health infrastructure of the country, acheiving an increase in the vaccination rate from 2% in 1986 to over 80% in 1989, and it has stayed that way ever since.
CARE aims to directly address underlying causes of food insecurity and malnutrition while reinforcing and strengthening community systems and resilience in Maradi, one of the most malnourished and food unsecured regions of Niger.
From chatbots to food to cash transfers to legal aid services to dignity—CARE’s humanitarian actions are vast, diverse, and creative. They represent the tireless, challenging, sometimes heartbreaking, and hopeful work of the humanitarians among CARE and our partners that we celebrate on World Humanitarian Day. In FY2023, CARE’s humanitarian efforts reached 6.5% of the people facing humanitarian crisis as we provided assistance to 20.5 million people in 67 countries.
Midwives play an essential role as Frontline Health Workers in providing access to sexual and reproductive health and rights and how they act as agents of change. However, their situation in the crisis and post-conflict contexts of Iraq and Côte d'Ivoire shows how they often compensate for the shortcomings of resource-poor and sometimes dysfunctional health systems through high level of personal commitment.
In a new report in collaboration with the Institute for Policy, Advocacy and Governance, CARE Austria has looked at how things are at the halftime of the SDGs, including an in-depth study on the impact of COVID19 on SDG 3 (Health and Well-being) in Europe and South Asia.
This document lays out our 2030 ambition to reach a world of hope, inclusion, and social justice.
In FY2023, CARE worked around the world, contributing to saving lives, fighting poverty, and increasing social justice.
