Financing Primary Health Care: What next for low and middle income countries?

Two weeks ago, I attended the 6th Annual Health Financing Forum (AHFF) as a panellist in three different sessions.

The first panel, which was held on the 15th of June, focused on open and inclusive processes for financing Universal Health Coverage, I shared examples of how the principles and criteria for fair financing, guided our approach to rallying stakeholders to support and fund the Basic Health Care Provision Fund and the newly established Ekiti State Drug Management Agency.

The next day, during the second panel, I, together with high-level government representatives from Argentina, Finland, Georgia and Indonesia, discussed the key issues in financing comprehensive primary health care, using Ekiti State Nigeria as one of the case studies.

On the third panel, I provided sub-national perspectives on the current challenges to immunisation financing (adequacy, efficiency and equity) in low-and-middle-income countries.

Besides sharing experiences and successes from Nigeria, the AHFF always provides me with an opportunity to listen to good practices in health financing and reforms from different parts of the globe. The session focusing on “Paying for Essential Medicines for PHC” was really germane and touched on salient issues for Nigeria.

Having been a member of the technical committee, developing and contributing to the background materials and success of four out of five previous forums, it was refreshing to participate in the forum from a different perspective (as a public servant).

What’s more, after months of several virtual meetings, attending a physical one was most welcome as it afforded me the opportunity to reconnect with old friends.?