This webinar is co-hosted by the World Health Organization and the Center for Global Development.
Historically, public financial management (PFM) has been overlooked in academic and policy discussions on the availability of domestic resources. However, there is now a growing body of evidence that shows the impact of PFM processes on the quality and volume of public spending in the health sector. In a recent Center for Global Development and World Health Organization paper, Hélène Barroy and Sanjeev Gupta argue that budgetary space for health can be created through added revenue and by improving PFM in publicly-funded health systems. This is a new approach to positioning PFM which has implications for budget dialogues and future research.
This webinar focuses on the links between PFM and budgetary space for health and explores ways in which improvements in budget formulation and execution can expand resources available for the health sector. Following a conceptual presentation, there will be a discussion on how countries can accelerate implementation of PFM reforms as a way to sustain funding towards universal health coverage and to respond to increased demand due to COVID-19.
CHAIR AND MODERATOR
Joe Kutzin leads WHO’s health financing team in Geneva. He is a health economist with 35 years’ experience in health financing policy and health system reform, working in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, and the United States. He has published numerous conceptual and empirical articles on health systems, health financing and Universal Health Coverage.
SPEAKERS
Dr Hélène Barroy is a Senior Public Finance expert at the WHO with 20 years of experience. She specialises in budgeting, public financial management and budgetary space for health issues. She previously worked for the World Bank, the French Government and the European Union providing analytical and technical support to public financing reforms in health.
Sanjeev Gupta is a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington DC with research interests in fiscal policy in developing and resource-rich economies as well as in fragile states, aid, corruption, energy subsidies, digitalization and public finances, age-related spending, global health, and inequality. Previously, he was deputy director of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund.
DISCUSSANTS
Yuriy Dzhygyr is an economist with more than 20 years of experience in assisting reforms in public financial management, social policy and fiscal decentralization in Ukraine, Western Balkans, Central Asia, East Asia and Pacific. Since the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine Yuriy worked as a non-staff adviser to Ukraine’s Minister of Finance and Minister of Health, helping to strengthen public expenditure management. During 2018-2020 he acted as Ukraine’s deputy Minister of Finance, covering public spending on human capital development programs.
Paul Booth has supported the African Union (AU) since 2014 as a health financing and PFM adviser. Among other health financing work Paul is lead consultant supporting the AU to deliver on the outcomes of the “Africa Leadership Meeting (ALM): Investing in Health” initiative and the commitments contained in the associated ALM Declaration signed by Africa’s 55 Heads of State in February 2019. He is a South African based in Johannesburg.
WRAP UP
Amanda Glassman is executive vice president and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and also serves as chief executive officer of CGD Europe. Her research focuses on priority-setting, resource allocation and value for money in global health, as well as data for development. She has more than 25 years of experience working on health and social protection policy and programs in Latin America and elsewhere in the developing world.
