The 2018 Flagship course on Universal Health Care was held at Jetwing Blue Hotel, Negombo, Sri Lanka from the 6th – 10th of March. 61 participants from 12 countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Dominican Republic, Lao PDR, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam) attended the course. In addition seven individual observers also attended the course from USAID Asia Bureau, Health Finance and Governance Project, World Bank, WHO and GIZ.
The course methodology using a mix of lectures, debates, hands-on group work exercises and case studies gave participants the opportunity to apply the course concepts to their own countries, and to interact with and learn from the experiences of instructors and other participants/countries.
Attending participants were from a multidisciplinary backgrounds and were not limited to mid and high-level policy-makers from Health and Finance Ministries and Social Security/Health Insurance agencies alone. The combination of experiences helped exploring in-depth, areas such as financial protection, affordability, equity, quality of service and efficiency, health systems, private or non-profit or public sectors, organization, politics etc.