Moving Toward Universal Health Coverage
The Joint Learning Workshop on Universal Health Coverage, held in Gurgaon, India on February 3-5, 2010, convened 120 representatives from six countries – Ghana, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – and several international organizations to share experiences in carrying out health coverage reform domestically, as well as to learn from the experiences and challenges of reform processes in other countries.
The three-day workshop featured country-led policy panel discussions aimed at increasing the audience’s understanding of each country’s health coverage scheme as well as four technical track sessions that were intended to serve as a platform for joint learning and problem solving across country delegations. Participants also had the opportunity to supplement technical discussions with site visits to either a hospital or an enrollment station within the network of RSBY, a national health insurance scheme implemented across a number of Indian states.
Participants agreed that the success of the workshop lay in its focus on participant-driven discussions and collaboration on the key issues. Anil Swarup, the head of the RSBY scheme in India, remarked "I must confess that the Conference at Manesar was one of the most remarkable Conferences that I have attended in my career spanning 29 years... There was a lot of innovation, including the informal but extremely effective session on enabling the participants to learn about the health coverage schemes in other countries. The discussions were focused and extremely relevant." David Zakus of the IDRC shared his enthusiasm for the joint learning model, commenting "what made it 'landmark' and unique in my experience was the systematic design of the symposium to make it a true south-south dialogue on an issue of great concern to all..."
The Joint Learning Workshop served as the pilot initiative in a series of joint learning activities. One of its key components was a collaborative discussion on the future structure and direction of the proposed Joint Learning Network (JLN). Specific follow-up activities are expected to take place later in the year based on feedback collected from workshop participants and other key stakeholders. Please take a moment to share what potential JLN activities you would find most valuable by taking the survey on the main page of this site.
This workshop was planned in consultation with delegation leads from each participating country, and with technical and/or financial support from a number of partners, including the ACCESS Health Initiative, Atlantic Philanthropies, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GTZ, the International Labour Organization, the Providing for Health (P4H) Initiative, the Results for Development Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the World Bank.