Financing priority public health services [fact sheet]

Financing priority public health services Key facts Fact sheet: August 2017 SMALL PHOTO facebook.com/WHOWPRO youtube.com/WHOWPRO@WHOWPROwww.wpro.who.int The health needs of people in the Western Pacific Region are changing, as countries undergo altering disease patterns, rapid urbanization, ageing, and economic development. The Region also faces continuous health security threats with an average of 200 disease outbreaks and related events annually. Countries in the Region spend from less than 3% to more than 16% of GDP on health. In some countries, a majority of health spending comes from external sources. Since the early 2000s, the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has disbursed more than USD 2.5 billion and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, more than USD 370 million to countries in the Region. Countries in the WHO Western Pacific Region have made great progress in reducing the burden of communicable diseases over the past few decades, but many are facing increasing challenges, such as population ageing, urbanization, and new infectious disease threats. Sustainable and resilient systems are needed to deliver essential public health functionsincluding surveillance, health protection and promotion, disease prevention and management, and outbreak response. Countries that are reforming their health budgets and services, and those facing reductions in external funding, have a particularly pressing need to adapt and secure their essential public health functions. Many countries are beginning to transition away from funding from the Global Fund and Gavi, as well as other donors. To transition from a vertically-funded to whole-of-system approach, countries must map existing elements in disease control programmes and how they are arranged to support broader public health functions, then coordinate and integrate those functions into the general health system. This enables countries to do more with available resources and achieve efficiencies at the health system level. Government leadership is critical to establishing the vision for health sector development, ensuring active participation of stakeholders, and sustaining health gains. In consultation with countries and independent experts, WHO has developed a regional framework for action: Transitioning to Integrated Financing of Priority Public Health Services in the Western Pacific. It recommends countries use a whole-of-system approach to secure essential public health functions and ensure the sustainability and resilience of health systems. It builds on the regional action framework Universal Health Coverage: Moving Towards Better Health and the Regional Action Agenda on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the Western Pacific, both adopted by the Regional Committee. WHO will continue to support countries in securing essential public health functions and managing the transition from external funding to domestic and integrated financing. This will include engagement with global health initiatives and development partners to facilitate actions for countries in the process of transition, such as: designing a mid-term funding plan and co-financing approaches to encourage countries to increase domestic funding; reviewing vertical programme delivery mechanisms and supporting operational changes for greater efficiency; aligning and channelling external funding through domestic financing systems to the extent possible; and encouraging greater collaboration among disease control and other public health programmes, between ministries of health and finance, and health insurance agencies. WHO response WPR/2017/RDO/007 © World Health Organization 2017 Some rights reserved. This work is available under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO license.