Promising Practices That Are Helping Ministries of Health Improve Their Health Budget Execution
It’s a goal that has challenged many a health ministry: how to free up significant resources for health services by increasing health budget execution. Late last year, health sector practitioners from eight countries (Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Lao PDR, Liberia,...
Supporting Country Progress Towards Better Health Budget Execution – The LHSS-JLN Health Budget Execution Learning Exchange
Public budgets continue to make up the vast majority of government funding for health, making them a cornerstone of financing for universal health coverage (UHC). Even for countries that have contribution-based insurance systems, government budgetary support...
Progressing towards CSU in the era of COVID-19 in French-speaking Africa: what are the major challenges?
Kéfilath Bello, Fadhi Dkhimi, Y-LingChi, Jean-Paul Dossou, HélèneBarroy On May 20, 2021, WHO, P4H, the Center for Global Development, the Global Financing Facility (GFF) and Collectivity have organized a webinar entitled...
Public financial management (PFM) in a pandemic: What can the experiences of Bangladesh and Indonesia during their COVID-19 response teach us about the importance of PFM?
Shamima Akhter (ThinkWell Bangladesh), Anooj Pattnaik (ThinkWell), Callum Pierce (ThinkWell), Afroja Yesmin (ThinkWell Bangladesh), Pak Trihono (ThinkWell Indonesia) In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Helal, the manager of a busy health facility in...
Policy versus the ground reality of Kenya’s free maternity program
Nirmala Ravishankar (ThinkWell), Boniface Mbuthia (ThinkWell Kenya), Stacey Orangi (KEMRI Wellcome Trust), and Edwine Barasa (KEMRI Wellcome Trust) Covid-19 threatens to reverse the progress countries have achieved in improving maternal and child survival, even as it...
Implementing UHC in the Philippines: Is the glass half full or half empty?
Christian Edward Nuevo¹, Maria Eufemia Yap¹, Matt Boxshall², & Nirmala Ravishankar² ThinkWell, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines ThinkWell, Washington DC, United States of America Correspondence to Christian Edward Nuevo (email: ian.nuevo@gmail.com)...
Policy and Implementation Insights on Provider Payment Reforms of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation
Dredge, R., Nuevo, C. E., Paterno, A. R. (2021) The Philippine Universal Health Care (UHC) Law of 2019 introduced system-level reforms on health financing, particularly for the provider payment mechanisms of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation...
Can Armenia Better Leverage its Basic Benefit Package for Universal Health Coverage?
Nicole Fraser, Adanna Chukwuma, Marianna Koshkakaryan, Lusine Yengibaryan, Xiaohui Hou, Tommy Wilkinson, Christina Meyer When Armenia introduced its first Basic Benefits Package (BBP) in 1997, the average life expectancy at birth was 70 years and the under-five...
Partnership collaboration in the area of health financing and social health protection for UHC
1 The high-level policy goal of universal health coverage and the rights-based social health protection frameworkThe COVID-19 pandemic has increased the visibility of the importance of a social safety net in all countries, including for health. This increased...
No time to lose: we must increase budgets now for COVID-19 rollout
This blog provides information for colleagues concerned with COVID-19 immunization about the need for Ministries of Health and Ministries of Finance officials to work together to budget for COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Authors: Peter Cowley, Nathalie Vande Maele – all...
How can decades of learning from voucher schemes in Uganda inform ongoing purchasing reforms?
This blog highlights an extensive study of the latest two reproductive, maternal, and newborn health (RMNH) voucher schemes in Uganda conducted jointly by the Uganda Ministry of Health and the Strategic Purchasing for Primary Health Care project implemented by...
Why PFM is Key for the Effective Roll Out of COVID-19 Vaccines
Written by Hélène Barroy, Federica Margini, Triin Habicht, Tomas Roubal, Peter Cowley and Joseph Kutzin As COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out globally, the number one question for many low-and-middle income countries is how much it is going to cost to procure...
Impact of COVID-19 on health care utilization and medical expenditure in the Republic of Korea in 2020
Written by Eunkyoung Kim and Tomas Roubal The Republic of Korea (ROK) has been regarded as one of successful countries in their response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As of 28 April 2021, ROK has reported 120,673 cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases...
Universal health coverage and COVID-19 preparedness and response in Asia and the Pacific
Authors: Soonman KWON and Eunkyoung KIM Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted all aspects of our global society and economies and progress towards universal health coverage (UHC), further worsening structural fragilities and deepening inequalities (1)....
Lessons from Rapid Implementation: how the revamped system to purchase COVID services in Indonesia affected its hospitals
The authors: Dr Anooj Pattnaik (ThinkWell Global, Deputy Director for Learning), Ryan Nugraha (ThinkWell Indonesia), Prof. Hasbullah Thabrany (ThinkWell Indonesia), and Catherine Connor (Program Director at ThinkWell). The spread of COVID-19 around the world has...