KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 11
Stressing that healthy people are the foundation of economic growth and essential for achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC), the finance and health ministers today called for smarter allocation and stronger systems to ensure better value for every rupee spent in the health sector.
Finance Minister Rameshore Prasad Khanal and Minister for Health and Population (MoHP) Dr. Sudha Gautam made this call in Kathmandu at the two-day International Conference on Health Economics, where national and international experts have gathered to discuss how economic evidence can guide better health policies and support the country's progress toward UHC.
Organized by the Nepal Health Economics Association (NHEA) in coordination with MoHP, the two-day event is being held under the theme "Health Economics for Policy" in partnership with Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, GIZ, University of Bergen (UiB), P4H, HERD International and Kathmandu University.
Underscoring the economic rationale behind more investment in health, Minister Khanal said, "There is a virtuous cycle to allocating in health. A healthy workforce becomes more productive, productivity drives economic growth, growth yields higher taxes, and higher taxes finance better health." He acknowledged that the government's expanding budget has not translated into proportional support for key social sectors, including health, and noted that spending on health has economic outcomes similar to capital investment.
While also delivering her remarks during the opening plenary session on "Health Benefit Package" at the conference, Health Minister Gautam emphasized the need for evidence-based policy decisions, adding that preventive health measures offer significant long-term savings. She called on the conference organizers and experts to provide concrete recommendations on the reforms, transformations, and changes her ministry should look into.
Similarly, also speaking during the occasion, Health Secretary Dr. Bikash Devkota said that the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) requires action beyond traditional health-sector boundaries. "Almost 80 percent of risk factors of NCDs fall outside the health sector. When the biggest burden lies beyond health, we must rethink how we act." He also highlighted inconsistencies in public financing. "We say health is a fundamental right, yet even in these mandatory areas our annual grants and programs lack consistency. That must be corrected."
Presenting results from priority setting of health interventions for UHC in Nepal, NHEA President Prof Dr Shiva Raj Adhikari highlighted how resource misallocation distorts health outcomes. "Low-priority services can crowd out high-priority interventions if we do not rethink what is truly essential." He added that the challenges seen today are structural. "Fragmentation in health financing is not accidental. It is a by-product of our system."
Chief of the MoHP's Policy Planning and Monitoring Division, Dr. Krishna Prasad Paudel, also addressing the opening plenary session, presented an overview of Nepal's health financing landscape and stressed the need for prioritizing health interventions.
In the first plenary session titled "Progress towards UHC: Where we are in protecting people and households from financial risk," Anna Koziel and Ajay Tandon of the World Bank shared insights on the role of data and analytics in strengthening health systems and presented highlights from the UHC Global Monitoring Report 2024, with specific reference to financial hardship in Nepal.
Similarly, Manit Sittimart of the Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program Foundation discussed Thailand's journey toward UHC and reflected on lessons learned from a researcher's perspective.
Prof. Kjell Arne Johansson of UiB's BCEPS spoke about evidence and value informed priority setting, emphasizing fair processes and fair outcomes on the path to UHC. The first day of the conference concluded with two parallel technical sessions on "Policy Instruments and Budget Analysis" and "Health Systems and Wider Determinants of Health" at the end.
"The conference aims to foster dialogue, share practical experiences, and strengthen the role of health economics in shaping reforms that can support the country's health system to move closer to UHC," said Senior Researcher at Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting in Health (BCEPS) at UiB, Dr. Krishna Aryal, while welcoming the dignitaries and participants to the event. He added that a central outcome of the conference will be a "Kathmandu Declaration on Financing for Universal Health Coverage", which is expected to set out shared priorities for accelerating the country's UHC reforms. Around 200 participants are attending the conference.