Adequate health financing arrangements and a well-functioning public financial management (PFM) are central to progressing towards universal health coverage (UHC) objectives. In the two Regions, persistent challenges exist, as a worsening trend of financial protection is observed coupled with deteriorating fiscal capacity because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing global fiscal distress. Under this critical time, better multisectoral collaborations between the Health and Finance sectors, and where applicable, social health insurance agencies, are needed more than ever to protect public spending on health, and improve the efficiency, equity, and accountability of health financing arrangements to sustain the gains of UHC in the post pandemic era.
To support Member States on this journey, the WHO Regional Offices for the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia have been organizing the bi-regional workshop on health financing policy for UHC since 2016 in collaboration with the World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB). The 2023 bi-regional workshop aims to unpack how health, finance, and social health insurance (where applicable) officials can better work together to reorient policies towards primary healthcare financing, one of the foundations for UHC, and tackle health financing bottlenecks in the face of the pandemic and fiscal constraints. Participants will share and learn from practical approaches on navigating both the technical as well as the political economy dimensions of health financing development and reforms to: strengthen domestic resource mobilization for health, improve strategic planning and purchasing, better recognize and tackle the political economy aspects of health financing reforms, and align PFM towards health financing strategies that are fit-for-purpose for the future.
OBJECTIVES OF THE WORKSHOP
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- To identify concrete policy options and strategies for advancing the regional health financing framework, with a focus on primary health care financing, health promotion and disease prevention.
- To share and exchange countries’ practices and lessons in addressing the UHC performance bottleneck from the financing lens;
- To build consensus and foster policy dialogue on establishing effective multisectoral mechanisms that integrate health into economic and social policy agendas.
