PRESENTER
- Srobana Ghosh, Policy Analyst, Center for Global Development
- Rob Baltussen, Professor, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Radboudumc
PANELISTS
- Jacque Mellender, Director, Economics by Design
- Tessa Tan Tores Edejer, Acting Head, Department of Health Systems Governance and Financing (HGF), WHO
- Alemayehu Hailu, Postdoctoral Fellow, Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting, Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, University of Bergen
- Owen Smith, Senior Economist, World Bank
MODERATOR
- Peter Baker, Policy Fellow and Assistant Director, Center for Global Development
Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is increasingly under threat by the post-COVID-19 global economic recession and subsequent reductions in aid budgets. Now more than ever, countries need to refocus their limited resources on the highest priorities to achieve UHC.
Explicit and evidence-based health benefits packages (HBPs) are a vital tool for countries striving to achieve UHC. A HBP decides the coverage of health services that a population can use, the proportion of costs covered by the package, and who can receive these services. Once it is established, it cannot remain static. It needs to be revised regularly to stay in line with country health priorities and account for changes in the dynamic landscape of health technology, budget availability, and practice of care. However, recent reviews have found that these revisions are rare, even for HBPs with decades of implementation history.
The Centre for Global Development, working with Radboud University and the World Bank, is releasing the Knowledge Product “Making explicit choices on the path to UHC - the JLN* Health Benefits Package Revision Guide”, which aims to provide guidance on HBP revisions. The development of the resource is the outcome of a three-year engagement with decision-makers from 14 countries.
This event will highlight learnings from the Knowledge Product and invite country representatives, as well as representatives from multilateral organisation, to discuss how to conduct a successful revision of a HBP, drawing on case studies from Sudan and Ethiopia.
*The Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage (JLN) is an innovative, country-driven network of practitioners and policymakers from around the globe who co-develop global knowledge products that help bridge the gap between theory and practice to extend health coverage to more than 3 billion people. Learn more here.
If you have questions for our panelists, please submit your comments via YouTube.
