Ministerial Conference on Value for Money, Sustainability and Accountability in the Health Sector
Tunis, Tunisia
4 - 5 July 2012
From July 4-5, the Harmonization for Health in Africa (HHA) organized a Conference of African Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Health on the theme of achieving greater value for money in Health. The Global Health Workforce Alliance (The Alliance), an associate member of the HHA, actively engaged in influencing the conference agenda and providing input for the discussion. Given that Human Resources for Health (HRH) constitutes the single largest component of the health budget, the Alliance prepared a topic brief on HRH Financing to feed into conference deliberations and the governance framework.
The objectives of the Conference were to create common understanding of the need to achieve better value for money and accountability in the financing of health in Africa as a key factor for economic growth and sustainable development, and to enhance joint leadership and collaboration between the two ministries. Ministers at the Conference adopted the Tunis Declaration - a the framework to be used by governments and relevant stakeholders to engage in concrete programmes for improving capacity to plan and budget for results and achieving health related MDGs. The Declaration Key topics of the conference included planning and budgeting for results, improving performance, health insurance, results-based financing, as well as sustainability of programs related to HIV/AIDS and maternal and child health.
The Alliance participated in the HRH financing session as well as the Session on The Equity Agenda. Several Alliance Board members from the AFBD , ICM, and others participated at the Conference, as also Alliance champion, Dr. Sheila Tlou.
The Conference was a follow up to the dialogue on health financing initiated during the AU/UNECA Ministers of Finance Meeting in Addis Ababa in March 2011.