Late last year, health sector practitioners from eight countries met to tackle the issue head-on as participants in the Joint Learning Network Health Budget Execution Learning Exchange. They made meaningful progress.

This video captures a November 6, 2020 ceremony in Hanoi which marked the formal start of the LHSS Project’s four-year effort to help the Government of Vietnam implement its social health insurance program. The program covers treatment services for people with HIV, among other essential health services.

Working closely with the Vietnam Social Security (VSS) agency, LHSS will help improve the agency’s capacity to manage the insurance program funds effectively, efficiently, equitably, and with accountability. LHSS will also support Vietnam’s transition to full financial ownership of its HIV and TB responses.

HMED software will improve Vietnam’s capacity to effectively forecast ARV demand, and manage the drugs when they are in the country. Also, engaging drug manufacturers and distributors is crucial to overcoming supply side obstacles.

This video highlights the first training session for the standardization of HIV community services held in Santo Domingo, September 2021 by LHSS in partnership with the National Health Service.

On December 17, 2021, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) held a capstone event in Tashkent, Uzbekistan to mark the achievements made by its Local Health System Sustainability (LHHS) COVID-19 response activity. This video is a recording of that event which was organized as a hybrid event in which the majority of attendees participated virtually.

By now, much has been written about the egregious global inequities in COVID-19 vaccine distribution. But less has been said about another inequity that holds serious implications for global health: the disparities in genomic sequencing capacities and capabilities worldwide.

She’s a big thinker, with an illustrious background. Midori de Habich was Peru’s minister of health and chair of the South American Council of Health from 2012-2014. She has served on various WHO working groups and missions and led USAID-funded projects in Peru. Now, she is applying her expertise in financial protection and population coverage to LHSS as the project’s technical director.

It is easy to fall back on the habit of using catchall terms like “vulnerable groups” to refer to many different people, but relying on these terms can have a harmful unintended consequence.  

For countries facing a large influx of migrants, the best way to ensure that these new members of society have sustained access to essential health services is to have a long-term strategy – one that builds on existing health platforms.

In the Dominican Republic, the dual impact of large numbers of migrants and a health system overwhelmed by COVID-19 has meant that fewer health services are available for migrant women. LHSS is working to improve health protection for the country’s migrant women, most of whom come from Haiti.

Poor budget execution results in inefficiencies that undermine the ability of health agencies to improve access to needed health services and improve population health. Yet billions of dollars in unexecuted health budgets are returned to treasuries every year. 

Population movement of this magnitude places huge stress on health systems in receptor countries. How can health care for migrants be financed? How can health system capacity be expanded? And how can health sector policies and national migration policies be harmonized?