How does Liberia, a country recently recovering from the devastating effects of the Ebola epidemic, create an effective, resilient, and financially sustainable health system? R4D is supporting Liberia’s Ministry of Health in taking steps to achieve sustainable financing for health and universal health coverage.
The Challenge
The Ebola outbreak of 2014-15 exposed many health system challenges in Liberia: inadequate funding, underdeveloped health services infrastructure, shortages of human resources, and limited administrative and management capacities. Since recovery from the outbreak, equal access to affordable, quality health care remains limited.. The country’s reliance on high levels of unsustainable donor support and inefficient use of limited domestic financial resources jeopardizes the availability of affordable care. Health-related out-of-pocket expenditures are also high for individuals and puts much of the population at high risk for impoverishment. As Liberia continues to recover from the effects of the Ebola crisis, the Government of Liberia (GoL) is committed to building a more resilient health system, and protecting people from impoverishing health care costs with a stronger health financing system.
The Opportunity
Despite the obstacles, Liberia aspires to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) in the coming years. While Liberia faces numerous design and implementation challenges on its path, the GoL and Liberian Ministry of Health (MOH) remain committed and aligned to achieving the UHC cornerstone of Sustainable Development Goal 3. Liberia aims to expand coverage of affordable and quality healthcare for its population in a more equitable and sustainable way through health financing reforms.
Our Work
Since 2015, R4D, as a partner on the USAID Collaborative Support for Health (CSH) program, has worked in partnership with the MOH to support Liberia’s path towards UHC and to develop a sustainable health financing system. Key R4D accomplishments include:
- Facilitating Liberia’s entry into the Joint Learning Network for UHC (JLN) to enable Liberia to learn from countries and global practitioners tackling similar health reforms
- Building key evidence to inform health financing reforms, including costing of Liberia’s primary care package of health services and implementation of a mixed-methods willingness-to-pay study to assess the population’s interest in a range of potential reforms
- Building capacity of MOH through targeted trainings and day-to-day mentorship
- Co-creating a health financing reform concept to improve the sustainability of drug financing and increase access to essential medicines in communities
- Collaborating with the GoL and development partners to co-create a long-term health financing vision to provide universal financial protection to the Liberia population
Through these activities, R4D has ensured that the MOH remains in the lead and engaged, and is a co-developer of key products. Thanks to its effective partnership with the MOH, R4D has gained the trust of key policymakers in the MOH, and is well-placed to continue supporting local Liberian change agents as they lead ongoing health financing reforms.
