To achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC), African countries are designing or implementing health financing reforms to provide quality healthcare to their citizens in a way that reduces financial hardship to households. Simultaneously, there is a growing recognition of the importance of politics and power relationships in designing and implementing health financing reforms. It is from this perspective that the Strategic Purchasing Africa Resource Center (SPARC) adopted a different approach to providing technical assistance called the “Coaching Approach” that looks beyond the technical aspects of health financing reform. The Coaching Approach draws on country and regional experts – referred to as coaches – who are familiar with the country context to support reforms. Coaches are supported by global experts as needed. This approach emphasizes working through existing infrastructure and processes to co-create contextually appropriate solutions with country stakeholders.
This paper describes how SPARC applied the Coaching Approach in Burkina Faso and highlights key learnings from the implementation of the approach, the importance of understanding the political economy in health financing reforms and key considerations for partners supporting similar reforms in other countries.
