Health systems and health equity: the challenge of the decade.

For decades, concerns regarding health systems have been prominent in the global health discourse, leading to numerous publications and laudable declarations, as well as compacts and consensus statements intended to guide policy and practice. This discussion paper is intended to neither summarise nor systematically review this vast field of interest. Instead, the paper reflects on some challenges for attaining health systems equity and raises questions related to the contributions of both national and the global health systems to this mission.