Toward integrated social health protection in the MENA region

Ensuring continuous social health protection – access to quality health care without financial hardship – over the course of everyone’s lives is a fundamental State obligation. Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), policy makers and practitioners are working to overcome longstanding fragmentation that has left

many in the so-called “missing middle” and those experiencing other common contingencies with limited access to even basic health care.

Providing equitable and uninterrupted social health protection is a major undertaking. Depending on the national context, it may require reforms of legal frameworks, a review of institutional arrangements, increased public investment, and strengthened governance of schemes. Above all, it calls for stronger linkages between social health protection, other branches of the social protection system, and broader national development plans.

Join us for this ISSA-ILO webinar in the Arab Social Protection Compass series, which will explore integrated designs to embed access to health care within the social protection system. It will also explore reforms in the region to address longstanding fragmentation, improve coverage and guarantee access to social health protection.

This episode will examine the following questions:

• What are the key barriers preventing people from accessing continuous health protection over the course of their lives?
• What are the main features of systems that foster greater integration of health within the broader social protection systems and national development agendas in the region and beyond?
• How can legal, institutional and financial reforms in the region improve equity and continuous access to social health protection?
• How can these efforts improve access for those outside of formal employment, migrant workers and people experiencing life course and labour market contingencies?
• What concrete steps are countries in the region taking to improve access to social health protection for all?

Agenda

• Opening by Marcelo Caetano, ISSA Secretary General
• Technical presentation by the ILO and ISSA
• Case experience of Egypt
• Case experience of Iraq
• Q&A – Discussion
• Conclusions
• Closing by the ILO

Moderated by Nathalie De Wulf, Coordinator of the Technical Commission on Medical Care and Sickness Insurance, ISSA

This episode is part of the webinar series "Arab Social Protection Compass: Towards Integrated Approaches for Universal Social Protection", organised by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in collaboration with the International Social Security Association (ISSA) and technical support of socialprotection.org. The initiative intends to put a spotlight on reforms and programmes geared towards fostering integration within social protection across the region and beyond, while contributing to stir discussion at the national level. Throughout the series, speakers will delve into both the theoretical underpinnings and practical implementations of specific reforms, aiming to inspire a broad audience of practitioners to replicate or scale up similar interventions.