What will you learn?

Health care reforms are becoming increasingly important fiscal challenge in South East European (SEE) region, especially at a time when these countries are undertaking large fiscal adjustments to reduce public debts. Since health care spending pressures have and will continue to intensify as combination of technological advances and demographic factors, constraining its growth will be an important pillar of fiscal consolidation strategies. Therefore, this workshop will outline the implications of health care reforms to achievement of countries’ overall fiscal objectives and assess possible tools for improving effectiveness and efficiency of this spending.

This workshop will be designed to help public officials better understand key factors undermining the efficiency of health care spending, as well as shortcomings in procedures and institutional organizations, in order to explain what improvements can be made to ensure better health care spending outcomes. Fiscal programming challenges of this policy sector and possible solutions will also be addressed throughout examining good practices in the region and beyond.

In particular, it will focus on strengthening analytical capacities of line ministries needed for assess possible approaches to improving health care financing and reducing sector specific fiscal risks through better coordination of allocated financial resources. Emphasis will be on the design of strategic purchases, structures for monitoring and evaluation of health care outcomes, and how performance information could be used in budgetary allocation decision-making.

Due to complexity of stakeholders involved in management of health care sector (ministries of health, ministries of finance, health insurance funds, institutions on both national and subnational level etc.), this workshop will also discuss prospects for incentivizing their coordination and cooperation in exchange of financial and non-financial data. 

How will you benefit?

The workshop will discuss the specifics of health care sector financing, prospects for improvement of spending efficiency; coordination of funds from different national levels and utilization of external funds to ensure the desired policy outcomes. Therefore, upon its completion, participants will be able to:

• Identify specific shortcomings in procedures and institutional arrangements that constrain coordination of health care policies
• Describe factors that could cause inefficiencies in health spending, and what could be done to address them the benefits of utilization of performance information when making budgetary allocation decisions
• Examine possible solutions for strengthening or introducing strategic purchasing mechanisms
• Assess how to streamline the process of monitoring and evaluation of health care outcomes

Since the workshop will be designed as partaking, the participants will be actively engaged in discussions and group exercises, and encouraged to share their country’s experiences and challenges encountered in budget preparation process. It will provide a ground for sharing experiences and best practices between participants and thematic experts from the SEE region, and beyond.

Who should attend?

Invited are public officials from the CEF constituency and other SEE countries who are working at:

• ministries of finance budget department as analysts of health care budgets
• ministries of health finance and policy departments participating in development and programming of health care policies, as well as on the preparation of annual budgets
• health care funds working on programming and budgeting of health care policies
• health care services providers
• other public institutions with a mandate in health care (such as parliamentary committees).

Lecturers

The learning initiative will be delivered under the guidance of:

• Dorjan Marušič- International Health Care Expert and Former Minister of Health in Slovenia
• Valentina Prevolnik Rupel- Senior Researcher at Institute for Economic Research and Former Advisor to Minister of Health in Slovenia
• Siniša Varga- Vice-president of the Health and Social Policy Parliamentary Committee and Former Minister of Health in Croatia
• Sierd Hadley- Research Fellow, Overseas Development Institute 

Practical information

The workshop be delivered in English and no translation will be provided.

Travel and accommodation costs will be funded for up to three officials per country from: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey. Officials from other CEF constituency countries (and beyond) would have to obtain funding from their sending institution (or another donor) to cover these costs. No fee will be charged, and meals and refreshments during the event will be provided to all selected participants.

Applications were closed on January 23 at 12:00 CET. Confirmations will be sent to selected candidates by January 25.

*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence

Partners

This learning initiative was supported by: