Evidence for advancing Universal Health Coverage in Zimbabwe: Report of the National Research Forum, 19th/20th March 2015

MoHCC, NIHR, TARSC (2015) National Research Forum: Evidence for advancing Universal Health Coverage in Zimbabwe, Conference Report, 19 -20 March 2015, Harare

This is a report of the National Research Forum: Evidence for advancing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Zimbabwe held on 19^th/20^th March 2015 in Harare, by the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC), the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and the Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) in collaboration with the Technical Working Group on Universal Health Coverage with support from the ReBUILD Consortium.

You can download the full Conference Report from the TARSC website here.

Background:

On 19th and 20th March 2015, the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC), the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and the Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) in collaboration with the Technical Working Group on Universal Health Coverage with support from the ReBUILD Consortium, held a one and a half day National Research Forum under the theme “Evidence for advancing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Zimbabwe”. The Technical Working Group (TWG) on Universal Health Coverage proposed to hold the Forum given the research implemented on UHC since 2012. The forum brought together 100 people from a wide range of constituencies and sectors including researchers, policy makers, state officials, health workers, civil society, the private sector and international agency personnel. The forum aimed to gather people from all constituencies and sectors doing or using research on any aspect of UHC in Zimbabwe, to present and share their research findings, discuss the policy implications and identify priorities for future work.

The conference had four theme areas related to UHC:

1. Health Equity: Reducing the gap in access to and coverage of health care and of social determinants of improved health.

2. Health financing: Mobilising financial, health worker, medicines and other resources for health, pooling of funds, reducing out of pocket spending and fair allocation and effective use of health resources.

3. Widening services to meet new challenges, such as non-communicable diseases, Ebola and multiple/co-morbidity.

4. People centred approaches: partnerships in health between communities, health workers, institutions and private sector.

Presentations in plenary and parallel sessions for each of the theme areas were followed by discussion and recommendations, with further time for debate and reflection during the poster sessions.