World Health Summit Side Event

The openIMIS Initiative co-organized the GIZ side event: Partnering for Efficiency, Strengthening Collaboration in Health Financing and Digital Health in Times of Resource Constraints.   

(Graphic credit © Susanne Asheuer)

Anna Sophie Herken, GIZ managing director, opened the event with looking at the ways that strong cross-functional partnerships in coordinating actors involved in global health and specifically health financing, highlighting how digital transformation is critical for mobilizing resources when those are scarcely available on domestic level. openIMIS was highlighted as an example of an initiative that encourages and demonstrates international cooperation through the network of organizations sponsoring its success. Partnerships around the digitalization of health insurance processes with openIMIS have helped increasing transparency and resilience of health systems, as the examples of Nepal and Cameroon showed. 

Both countries, through active involvement in partnerships with P4H and openIMIS, have made progress towards Universal Health Coverage and greater resilience and transparency in their healthcare systems. Erika Placella, Head of Health Programme at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, praised openIMIS and partners’ work in ensuring the transformation and development of health financing in LMICs. 

In her closing remarks, Shahrah Razavi, the director of the Social Security department of the ILO, reminded the audience that the majority of the world’s population remains unprotected in the case of illness and injury, and that future partnerships must take justice and solidarity into account, ensuring that no one is left behind.

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