Sixth Advanced Course on Health Financing for Universal Coverage for Low- and Middle-income Countries

Course announcement

WHO is pleased to announce the Sixth Advanced course on health financing for universal coverage for low- and middle-income countries, to be held from 18 to 22 November 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland. This week-long advanced training program is organized by WHO’s Health Financing Policy team based in Geneva with selected contributions from global experts. The deadline for applications is Thursday 4 July 2019 at midnight (Geneva, Switzerland time).

Who is the course for?

The course is designed for policy makers, advisors and analysts in the health and social sectors, senior managers of service provider organizations and health insurance funds, and other relevant actors in government (e.g. Ministries of Finance, Parliamentarians), the private sector and civil society. This is an advanced course and participants are expected to have extensive and relevant work experience and knowledge of health financing policy, and previous training in health systems and policy (e.g. participation in a Flagship Course).

This course will be delivered exclusively in English.

Course content

The course is structured in line with WHO’s approach to thinking and analyzing health financing policy and its role in improving health system performance, in particular making progress towards universal health coverage. During the course, participants will be able to apply WHO approach to analyze and reflect on their own health systems performance, assess the problems it faces, and discuss ideas with professionals from a wide range of countries. The course which is organized around the following core health financing functions or topics:

• Raising revenues – strategic issues for policy makers
• Pooling health revenues – minimizing fragmentation to maximize performance
• Purchasing – more health for the money through payment reforms
• Benefit design – considering equity, efficiency, financial protection and transparency
• Health financing and public finance management – addressing bottlenecks
• Coordinating reform – aligning multiple policy instruments with system goals