The government of Kenya calls for health sector development partners to independently review both the content and development process of the draft strategy and to provide a road map for finalization and implementation in support of national health policies and objectives aimed at universal health coverage. The partners respond as Providing for Health (P4H) initiative and put together a team of international experts from WHO, the World Bank and GIZ not previously involved in the development of the health financing strategy to undertake a mission.
The observations include that during the protracted HFS development process which started in 1999, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and other stakeholders were unable to achieve consensus about the health financing model to be used, or how it might be implemented. Intense discussion focused on key issues such as the role of insurance and budget funding in health care financing, the feasibility of establishing a single purchaser by pooling all revenues, the use of competition between health insurers for the implementation of a basic benefits package (BBP) and the viability of a public/private mix in health financing establishing UHC by improving SHP cannot be achieved by the MOH alone. Intersectoral involvement, coordination and agreement within the Government and between the ministries of health, social welfare, labour and finance is therefore a key pre-requisite for successful reform.
The lack of an in-depth stakeholder analysis and social impact assessment was one of the main obstacles to the consultative process that underpinned the development of the HFS, making it more or less impossible to articulate and bridge the different interests between the various stakeholders
Please read the mission report below for more details on the findings and recommendations on the way forward towards UHC.
