Home > News & Events
News & Events
Stay up-to-date with the latest news and events from the Joint Learning Network.
Webinar: Achieving Universal Health Coverage in Urban Settings: Incentives, Challenges, and Opportunities
Cities in low- and middle-income countries are experiencing significant expansion. The World Bank estimates that India’s urban population will increase by 40% by 2036, necessitating an investment of $840 billion in infrastructure over the next five years. Given the urgent challenges related to urban health, how can low- and middle-income countries ensure access to integrated, quality, and affordable health care in line with their goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC)? This webinar, co-hosted by Management Sciences for Health and the Joint Learning Network, will focus on “Achieving Universal Health Coverage in Urban Settings: Incentives, Challenges, and Opportunities.” It will address emerging issues in urban health in India, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. The discussion will deliberate on innovative financing strategies for population health in urban areas, approaches to reducing out-of-pocket expenses, and how to leverage development finance to achieve equity and efficiency in healthcare delivery. Participants will also be able to engage in a Q&A session during the latter half of the webinar. For more information, click here. Register Now
Understanding priority setting, resource allocation and financing trends for health: JLN Knowledge Product Showcase Series
Authors: Vrishali Shekhar, Dr. Daniel Darko The JLN Knowledge Product Showcase Series (JLN- KPSS) was launched to provide the JLN community with greater exposure to JLN’s recently concluded and ongoing work. This seminar series enables key decision-makers and policymakers to become better acquainted with available JLN products and approaches for development. It also demonstrates products that can be scaled in their respective countries as sustainable innovations to attain their UHC priorities. During a recent session of the JLN KPSS, members addressed the critical global challenge of strengthening health financing systems and improving health system resilience amidst evolving health priorities. The relevance of these JLN resources is underscored in the context of the global decline in public health spending post-COVID-19, and the persistence of catastrophic out of pocket health spending which poses a significant barrier to UHC thereby emphasizing the need to prioritize public financing and improve budget execution. The session spotlighted two popular JLN resources produced under the World Bank led Health Financing Technical Initiative; the Health Priority Setting and Resource Allocation (HEPRA) toolkit (produced under the Efficiency Collaborative) and the Narrative Summaries on Public Expenditures for Health (produced under the Domestic Resource Mobilization Collaborative). These tools, developed collaboratively with inputs from several JLN member countries including Bangladesh, Kenya, Indonesia, and Ghana, aim to enhance evidence-based decision-making and policy dialogue. The session began with providing an overview of the two respective JLN resources. The HEPRA toolkit has 36 questions that comprise a structured mechanism to assess and visualize how systematic and evidence based the various existing health sector priority setting mechanisms are in a country and whether resources are allocated on the basis of the priorities that are set. When administered across multiple countries and/ or over the course of time, the tool’s output allows benchmarking across countries, monitoring progress, and identifying areas where targeted efforts can be made for improvement. Developed collaboratively with ten countries, the practical application of the toolkit included enabling more effective policy dialogue, identifying areas for capacity building, and monitoring progress in linking priority setting to resource allocation. Complementing this, the Narrative Summaries are concise and comprehensive briefs of a country’s historical trends in health spending and domestic resource mobilization reforms that can support evidence- based decision making amongst government policymakers and help facilitate fiscal discussions, especially between Ministries of Health and Finance. These summaries leverage historical and global data to evaluate fiscal space, public health expenditures, and their alignment with national health outcomes. Each summary is customized to country needs and focused on evaluating trends in health expenditure, fiscal space, and drawing sectoral comparisons. The process of creating summaries involved collaboration with local stakeholders, enhancing capacity and promoting ownership. The session underscored the practicality of these tools through country-specific experiences. Bangladesh emphasized the application of the HEPRA toolkit in revising its health financing strategy and aligning it with its Universal Health Coverage (UHC) roadmap. The country highlighted pilot programs transitioning donor-funded initiatives, such as tuberculosis treatment, to government-led frameworks. Ghana presented its use of narrative summaries to evaluate the decline in health budget allocations and advocate for increased investments in health, demonstrating the resources’ role in identifying gaps and informing policy. Despite challenges such as declining budget allocations and insufficient tax revenues, Ghana has used these tools to benchmark progress and engage in policy advocacy. Panelists from Kenya and Indonesia echoed the value of these tools, recognizing their potential to enhance transparency, improve resource allocation, and promote policy coherence. Discussions also highlighted the broader implications of budget execution on health outcomes and the importance of sustained advocacy to ensure alignment between health system priorities and resource availability. The session demonstrated the relevance and adaptability of JLN tools in diverse country contexts. The development of the tools through co-creation by several JLN member countries ensured that they address real-world challenges faced by countries in similar scenarios in the low- and middle-income country context. Importantly, the JLN resources demonstrated their usability by helping identify areas for targeted efforts, providing actionable solutions while continuing to allow an opportunity for cross-country learning. They can also be resources for health policymakers to engage with finance ministries and other stakeholders more effectively. Finally, in the context of depleting financial resources and conflicting priorities, these knowledge products stress the need for countries to prioritize domestic resource mobilization and improve budget execution to sustain health system progress. About the authors: Vrishali Shekhar, Focal Point for Country Engagement and Country Core Group Activities, World Bank JLN team Naina Ahluwalia, Focal Point of JLN Efficiency Collaborative Aditi Nigam, Focal Point of JLN Domestic Resource Mobilization Collaborative Dr. Daniel Darko, Deputy Director, Financial Accounting, NHIA, Ghana Contributors: Naina Ahluwalia, Focal Point of JLN Efficiency Collaborative Aditi Nigam, Focal Point of JLN Domestic Resource Mobilization Collaborative Dr.Subrata Paul, Health Economics Unit, MoH, Bangladesh Dr.Elizabeth Wangia, JLN Country Core Group Chair & Head, Health Financing, Ministry of Health, Kenya. Bu Suciati Mega Wardani, Expert Staff of Director, BPJS Kesehatan/ National Social Security Agency of Indonesia
Shaping Resilient Health Systems: JLN’s Strategies for Tackling Health Challenges in a Changing World, 7 January 2025
Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) roll-out in Nigeria
JLN Strategic Communications Practical Guide & Planning Tool was used in Nigeria to operationalize the BHCPF.
Institutionalizing Medical Audits in India
JLN Medical Audit Toolkit was adapted to design A decentralized audit system and scaled across states.