What makes a good case for allocating more of the national budget to the health sector?

Posted from Investing in health: news and views from healthy development, World Bank Group

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"Making the case for increasing the national budget allocation to the health sector is critical if more domestic resources are to be garnered for financing universal health coverage. Yet, there are competing priorities for more allocation for other sectors. While political will remains pivotal to decisions on national priorities, against limited resources, fiscal managers- such as ministries of finance or treasury- have a challenging job translating national priorities into budget allocations for sectors.

As a result, like other sectors, the health sector must make a convincing case for more allocation. Strengthening the case for the health sector was a subject of discussion at the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Financing Forum co-hosted by the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Ministries of health can learn from four main points that came out of the discussion:

1. avoid generic arguments;
2. link revenue raising requests to an investment or a spending plan;
3. pursue a multi-sector collaborative or solidarity approach; and
4. advocate for political support."

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