Washington, D.C., June 15 – Caribbean and Central American senior health officials met in Washington D.C. for a regional knowledge exchange forum to discuss healthcare financing and explore ways to accelerate progress toward universal health coverage (UHC).

A 3-day event, organized by the World Bank with the support of the Korea World Bank Partnership Facility, brought together Caribbean leaders, health officials, policymakers, experts, and researchers to share regional insights and experiences on financing UHC in the face of shocks. Participating countries included Belize, Costa Rica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Countries in the Caribbean and Central America have embarked on ambitious health financing reform initiatives to expand UHC. However, disruptions brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters affecting the region, present a challenge in achieving sustainable health financing and building progress toward UHC.

“I think it’s very important to be part of this knowledge exchange because we are focusing on the implementation of UHC in Saint Lucia and for us, any opportunity to learn from our brother and sister countries across the region and indeed from countries across the world, will help us to avoid reinventing the wheel and potentially encountering the same mistakes or challenges faced by other countries during their UHC implementation processes,” said The Honorable Moses Jn Baptiste, Minister of Health, Wellness, Elderly Affairs of Saint Lucia.

The regional knowledge exchange aimed to serve as a platform for participants to discuss common challenges in health financing, share best practices, strengthen the regional network, and come up with innovative and collaborative solutions.

Remarking on the exchange, Alexandra Pugachevsky, Korea World Bank Partnership Facility Program Manager said, “Korea World Bank Partnership Facility has recognized this activity’s exceptional performance, selecting it to receive the ‘Best Client Orientation and Response to Client Demand Award’ during the Korea World Bank Partnership Facility ten-year celebration event that took place earlier this year in Seoul. Learning from Korea and transferring knowledge to Caribbean countries has enabled this activity to help in sharing best practice examples in UHC.”

The knowledge exchange event builds upon the World Bank’s ongoing technical assistance work with the Governments of Saint Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines, funded by the Korea-World Bank Partnership Facility. These efforts aim to accelerate progress toward UHC in key areas such as health financing, health management information systems, non-communicable disease care management, and hospital sector performance.

The previous Universal Health Coverage Accelerator Regional Knowledge Exchange Event, organized in 2022, gathered over 80 representatives from seven Caribbean countries and became a catalyst for re-energizing reform goals in a post-COVID-19 pandemic context. In addition, under the technical assistance work, Caribbean health officials benefited from a 5-day study tour to South Korea, where they learned about efficient and sustainable models for implementing UHC and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Korea’s leading health institution, Seoul’s National University Bundang Hospital.