At the start of his 2nd term, and aligned with Member States’ commitments to the UHC and SDG agenda, the President of Kenya has reached out to the WHO Director General to support the country’s efforts towards UHC. He has made commitments as part of 4 key pillars of focus during his second term to achieve attainment of UHC for Kenya on / before 2022. A new leadership (Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretary) have been appointed to the Ministry of Health and from WHO, the Director General has committed to make available a team of experts to assist and facilitate the country’s efforts.
The first Mission of high level experts was led by the WHO Assistant Director General for UHC, Ms. Naoko Yamamoto, combining WHO HQ and AFRO Health Systems Leadership which took place between the 12th and 14th March 2018.
The WHO Regional Office for Africa and the WHO Country Office had already undertaken a preparatory technical mission from 27 February – 2 March 2018, to engage with various stakeholders and review the current status of work on UHC as part of clarifying the issues to be engaged with by the High Level Mission. This document and Terms of Reference relate to the High Level mission.
Objective of the mission was to address HE the President’s request to DG in the following areas
Review and advise on models of financing for rapid and sustainable progress towards UHC in Kenya
Review and advise on the processes and policy directions Kenya has been engaged with so far and provide advice on how to align various aspects of health system strengthening (e.g. service delivery strategy, HRH, governance) with financing options, in the context of Kenya’s devolved system to promote sustainable progress towards UHC.
Behind this background and due to its long standing involvement in the East African Region, and specifically in Kenya, the P4H Social Health Protection Network (SHP) for UHC has been approached by WHO to act as stand-by coordination ‘instrument’ to this mission, seen that the content (UHC/ SHP/ Health Financing) will draw interest and participation of a number of national P4H network and other partners.
P4H’s engagement in Kenya, to assist the process of developing a health financing strategy towards UHC dates back to at least 2011. Until 2014 the national P4H network partners coordinated actively to provide the Ministry of Health with aligned technical support. Furthermore P4H collaboration with the East African Community has steadily intensified since 2012, with the commitment to support SHP and UHC activities within the region.
P4H global coordination desk (CD) representative and the P4H regional focal point (RFP) have now been invited, as representatives of the Network’s Coordination Team, to join WHO to, assist the above mission with a focus on coordination of joint activities of network partners and the government relating to SHP and Health Financing towards UHC shall the need arise.
