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More health for the money: Navigating the ins and outs of contracting of health services together

With the donor funding reductions and challenging economic times, many countries have found themselves in a challenging situation on what gets funded and how to finance their health system. Mobilizing additional domestic funding for health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) is challenged by highly informal economies, narrow tax bases, which constrains revenue collection, increasing debt, and limited fiscal space. Almost all LMICs are strategizing how to close funding gaps caused by reduced funding for health and how strategic purchasing approaches such as government-led contracting with the private sector can play an important role by offsetting challenges and augmenting both service delivery and financing in LMICs. Contracting has the potential to make the health system more efficient through delivering better value (higher quality care at lower or more efficient costs) achieving more health for the money.

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Mar 24, 2026 4 min read

Blog

How India and Egypt are building resilient pharmaceutical ecosystems

 Access to quality, affordable, and timely health products is fundamental to achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Yet across many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), pharmaceutical systems remain vulnerable to regulatory fragmentation, import dependency, supply chain disruptions and limited local manufacturing capacity - weaknesses that became even more visible during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global supply disruption. 

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Mar 18, 2026 4 min read

Blog

Government Led-Contracting as a Critical Response to Changing Health Financing Landscape

The global health landscape is not merely shifting - it has fractured. The much anticipated “2026 Funding Cliff” has arrived, bringing with it a sharp retrenchment in development assistance for health. Between 2024 and 2025 alone, global aid flows declined by 21 percent, driven largely by a dramatic contraction in major bilateral financing. A recent analysis published in The Lancet Global Health warns that such abrupt reductions risk millions of preventable deaths by 2030, threatening to undo two decades of hard-won progress in controlling infectious diseases.

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Mar 2, 2026 5 min read

Blog, Global

From Ideas to Action: Accelerating Health Systems Change with the Joint Learning Fund

At the heart of the Joint Learning Network (JLN), a global peer-based organization made up of policymakers and practitioners from 41-member countries, lies a shared commitment to collaborative learning and collective problem solving to advance Universal Health Coverage (UHC).  Through the JLN, in-country stakeholder groups made up of representatives from key government institutions and development partners working together on UHC reforms, come together to define and communicate country priorities, as well as share and apply learnings and guidance. Over the past few years, the CCGs became increasingly aware that more was needed to translate the knowledge acquired from JLN activities into action to address emerging health system challenges. In January 2025, the Joint Learning Fund (JLF) was launched to bridge the critical gap between collaborative learning and implementation. The purpose of the JLF is simple yet catalytic: support countries in translating joint learning guidance and resources into tangible action that strengthens health systems.

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Oct 1, 2025 6 min read