How to support inclusive policy dialogue for universal health coverage
Each country’s journey to achieving universal health coverage (UHC) must be sensitive to local social, economic and political priorities in order to overcome obstacles. The process of developing country-specific solutions must include key stakeholders, if the solutions are to be relevant, sustainable, and grounded in the population’s needs.
This requires policy dialogue that brings together a wide range of stakeholders to develop and implement strategies. Because a variety of perspectives not only contributes to the richness of policy dialogue, but it also helps to create alignment around common goals and contributes to homegrown solutions that are technically valid, politically feasible, and socially acceptable.
The USAID-funded African Collaborative for Health Financing Solutions (ACS) program supported inclusive policy dialogue over five years with key players driving UHC throughout sub-Saharan African. The resources included below, co-developed with ACS’ African Institutional Partners, are useful to design, implement, and assess an inclusive policy dialogue for UHC. They may be adapted and used for specific country contexts.
Key resources and how they can be used:
Introductory resources for inclusive policy dialogue: These resources are helpful for policymakers, policy implementers, public and private health service providers, civil society organizations actors, academics/researchers who are interested in conducting and/or generating knowledge around inclusive policy dialogues. The following tools define key topics, highlight the importance of inclusive policy dialogue, provide an overview of useful tools/activities, and lessons learned from applying these tools.
Voices Inspiring Change are stories about individuals who are trying to catalyze a country’s UHC journey. They bear witness to the power of engaging the full range of stakeholders from diverse sectors and of leveraging the richness of their various backgrounds, perspectives, and insights to achieve high-quality, affordable, people-centered care for all. These stories can be used as advocacy materials to raise awareness and convince decision-makers to make deliberate efforts on policy dialogue inclusivity.
Focusing on inclusivity requires identifying existing policy dialogue platforms and actors who have been left out, while also developing strategies to increase inclusivity in different settings.
These resources and many more appear below in English and in French.
