Asia-Pacific health experts will assess ongoing policy options in moving towards strategic purchasing, particularly on primary healthcare.

As part of supporting the implementation of countries’ universal health coverage road maps, the WHO has been organizing workshops on health financing policy for universal health coverage since 2016. In collaboration with ADB and the World Bank, the workshops have been bringing together representatives from Ministries of Health and Finance and health insurance agencies in the Asia and Pacific region to discuss and solve the critical challenges facing their countries. The first workshop was held in Manila in 2016 and highlighted issues in health financing in general, including revenue collection, pooling, and purchasing. The second workshop was held in New Delhi and focused on resource allocation and strategic purchasing. Based on feedback from participants, a deeper understanding of strategic purchasing and more country examples and cross-country learning were recommended for future events.

This third workshop will further delve into strategic purchasing issues and highlight promising practices of how countries have moved towards more strategic purchasing with the specific actions countries are taking or have taken. The workshop will center around primary healthcare financing, with focus on topics including alignment of various funding streams, public financial management, budget structure, benefit design and pharmaceuticals, and paying for primary care through health insurance.