Introduction
The 19th World Rural Health Conference, hosted in rural Ireland and the University of Limerick, with over 650 participants coming from 40 countries and an additional 1,600 engaging online, has carefully considered how best rural communities can be empowered to improve their own health and the health of those around them. The conference has also considered the role of national health systems and all stakeholders, in keeping with the commitments made through the Sustainable Development Goals and the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health as one of the fundamental rights of every human being (1, 2). The conference was addressed by experts in rural health from all regions of the world and this conference declaration is in response to the “Blueprint for Rural Health”(3), the declaration from the 17th World Rural Health Conference in Bangladesh, which was designed to inform rural communities, academics, and policy makers about how to achieve the goal of delivering high quality health care in rural and remote areas most effectively. This statement is also in support of World Health Assembly resolution 72.2 on primary health care (4), which calls on all stakeholders to provide support to Member States in mobilizing human, technological, financial and information resources to help build strong and sustainable primary health care (PHC), as envisaged in the Declaration of Astana (5).