The global surgery movement : the case of ethiopia

The year 2013 marked the creation of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (LCoGS), which culminated in two major milestones: the widely-cited Surgery 2030 report of the Commission, and the World Health Assembly Resolution 68.15, which recognized the need to strengthen “essential surgical care and anaesthesia as a component of universal health coverage.”(1,2) With 2018 marking the 5 anniversary of the creation of LCoGS, it is an appropriate time to review the goals of the global surgery movement, and to consider preliminary successes and enduring challenges in the international effort to recognize surgical access as a public health priority. Here we choose to do so with a focus on Ethiopia. Given the commitment of the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) of Ethiopia as well as the ministries of neighboring African nations to establish quality surgical services for the whole of the general public, this overview is important to inform future policy decisions.