WHO conducted a hands-on training on Costing and Budgeting for National Action Plans (NAPs) on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) utilizing the WHO tool, to One Health partners from 24 to 26 October 2023 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. 60 participants representing health, agriculture, veterinary, fisheries and environment sectors participated in this three-day training held in partnership with the Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka.
Image: WHO costing and budgeting tool handbook
The objective of the training was to provide the One Health sector colleagues and AMR partners a comprehensive information on the key components and functionality of the WHO costing and budgeting tool for AMR NAPs. In addition, the training intended to sensitize the One Health partners on operationalization of the costing and budgeting tool in the country including data entry, verification, data validation, and visualization utilizing the tool.
When implementing national action plans on antimicrobial resistance, decision makers need to understand how much activities will cost, what is already being funded and how to leverage additional funding. A costed NAP provides the foundation to identify funding gaps and mobilize additional resources to fill those gaps in order facilitate successful implementation of the planned activities.
To support countries in costing and budgeting of respective NAP AMR activities, WHO has developed a costing and budgeting tool and an accompanying user guide. The tool was launched in October 2021 and since then has been piloted in several countries. Sri Lanka is the second country in the WHO South-East Asia Region to train in person One Health partners utilizing the tool. This pragmatic and modular tool is user friendly, flexible, easy to navigate and adaptable to the needs of countries. It can be used to calculate and visualize detailed costs for prioritized activities included in the NAPs on AMR. Considering the different country contexts, the tool can be filled using a modular approach which allows different sectors, ministries or relevant departments to fill in the tool independently and thereafter consolidate into one national plan. The tool, though developed for costing of AMR NAPs can also be utilized for costing and budgeting of other action plans as well.
The tool comprises of several elements namely, NAP entry – where user specifies the NAP priorities, objectives and activities that were selected for costing; Basic inputs – where key country specific parameters, including ministry/implementer names, funder names, implementation years and unit costs for various items are entered; Costing matrix – which is generated automatically after NAP entry; and a Dashboard which is used to visualize all data.
The training was conducted by trainers from WHO HQ. The participants were given training regarding each aspect of the tool. At the end, each participant had the opportunity to develop a costed budget and visualize the dashboard. The role of the help desk at the WHO HQ was also highlighted during the training emphasizing that problems or difficulties will be addressed, and solutions will be provided to the users as soon as possible.
Sri Lanka will use the tool to formulate a costed two-year operational plan of the current NAP of AMR Sri Lanka. This will help to capacitate AMR partners to develop a costing and budgeting plan with view of identifying funding gaps, making an investment case for AMR. Also, this tool will be used to cost the national action plan for health security (NAPHS) 2024-2028 which will be one of the first few countries to showcase a costed and budgeted NAPHS. Additionally, this exercise will be helpful for One Health partners and directorates of MOH to prepare a costed and budgeted national action plans for their areas of work as well.
Photo credit: WHO Sri Lanka