Side Meetings
SMB108
Improving Financial Protection for UHC: strengthening the evidence to policy pipeline
26
Jan
-
09:30 - 12:30 HRS. (BKK)
- World Bank, World Health Organization
Despite the global ambition to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030, there is limited progress in improving financial protection and global service coverage expansion has stagnated in the past decade. Financing for health in most low- and middle-income countries remains dominated by high levels of out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending, an inefficient and inequitable modality which contributes to foregone care among poor and vulnerable populations, reduces the ability of households to spend on other necessities, and puts them at risk of impoverishment. In order to accelerate progress towards UHC, there is a need for new approaches to address financial protection in health.
PMAC 2026 will take place a month after the release of the UHC Global Monitoring Report 2025 (GMR25), co-produced by both organizations, presenting the newest data on global and regional progress towards UHC. The report findings will be disseminated during the session.
The side meeting, co-organized by the World Bank (WB) and the World Health Organization (WHO), will bring together policymakers, practitioners and researchers to present new evidence and approaches, share country-specific experience, and discuss policy options. The meeting will be divided into two 1.5-hour sessions.
The first session will focus on tracking progress towards UHC. It will start with introduction to the new UHC monitoring framework adopted in 2025 in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. Next, results from the UHC Global Monitoring Report 2025 will be presented. The report, that will be launched in the month prior to the meeting, will be the first edition to use the new monitoring framework and will present the newest data on global progress towards UHC. After discussing global and regional trends, country-specific evidence from Asia will be highlighted.
The second session will be dedicated to policy solutions for improving financial protection. The session will be framed by a framework for a health system approach to address financial protection in health, co-developed by the WB and WHO. Its objective is to provide a systematic way to diagnose and identify drivers of poor financial protection as a basis for a concrete policy dialogue. The presentation on the framework will be followed by a discussion with regional policymakers on the challenges and successes in their countries, with facilitators linking these experiences to the earlier discussed framework.
Policymakers for panel in the second session and country cases to highlight in the first session will be identified in consultation with the regional World Band and World Health Organization teams.
