acase@tulane.edu / The Sustainable Development agenda, which will be driving the development discourse of the world in next fifteen years, has 17 goals and 169 target. Goal 3 is related to health and it has 13 targets. Target 3.8 states “Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all”. This target - related to universal health coverage (UHC) is considered the linchpin of all other health targets. Although more than 100 countries across the world are pursuing UHC reforms, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to achieving UHC. It has been recommended that governments should develop approaches that fit the social, economic, demographic, and political context of their countries. Pakistan, the sixth most populous country in the world, underwent its first democratic transition after elections 2013. The 18th constitutional amendment of devolution has made health a provincial subject in the country. As promised in election manifestoes, all the three major political parties ruling provincial governments have recently committed to health financing reforms for achieving UHC. Though the existing literature provides a few key health financing indicators at the national level, there is a paucity of evidence for planning and monitoring UHC reforms at the provincial level. This dissertation, comprised of three papers, addressed this gap by providing empirical evidence on: i) incidence and determinants of catastrophic health expenditure, ii), efficiency of division level health systems in producing UHC tracer indicators. and iii) provincial progress towards Universal health coverage and associated in-equities from 2001-14. / 1 / Faraz Khalid