Shared responsibility for health through sustainable health financing
Two high-level working groups established to examine critical issues in global health governance and financing have published their recommendations in reports from the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House.
The financing group, chaired by John-Arne Røttingen from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, examined what needs to be done to provide a global framework to achieve universal health coverage through sustainable health financing.
Resources are essential to improve health and health systems. It is only when these resources are available and wisely allocated that people can receive high-quality health care that does not cause them financial hardship.
Common challenges put such progress at risk in countries across the world, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. These challenges are common not just within these countries but across borders, so collective action on a global scale is required. Specifically, the report calls for an agreed coherent global framework for health financing that can secure sufficient and sustainable funding, which can mobilise and use these funds efficiently and fairly.
Progress can be made by revising the current approach to health financing in three areas:
- the domestic financing of national health systems
- the joint financing of global public goods for health
- the external financing of national health systems where domestic capacity is inadequate
Progress in these areas can be achieved through a set of policy responses that are summarised in twenty recommendations listed in the executive summary of the report. A financing floor of $86 per capita is necessary to provide priority health services. Key recommendations include that all countries should invest at least 5% of GDP into health and that high income countries, and eventually the upper middle income countries, should provide 0.15% of GDP for external support to countries with inadequate capacity.
More information:
The report, "Shared Responsibilities for Health: A Coherent Global Framework for Health Financing," is available online: www.chathamhouse.org/publicati … s/papers/view/199542
Provided by Norwegian Institute of Public Health
