Health system strengthening in fragile and conflict-affected states: a call to action.

Although the speed of global development has been impressive, not all countries have developed at the same pace. The World Bank Group (WBG) report that Fragile and Conflict-Affected States (FCAS) are those countries that have lower health and development outcomes, and risk not being able to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the next few years. Health systems play an important role in building capacity and infrastructure that can lead towards fulfilling the SDGs. In this editorial, we set the context, and launch a call to action, for a BMC Health Service Research Collection titled "Health services and systems in fragile and conflict-affected regions".