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Importance of India and Africa Strategic Partnerships to Build Health Innovations for Universal Health Coverage (UHC)

 

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In an endeavour to encourage health innovations in India and Africa, a conclave was organised by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Amref Africa, the Institute of Development Studies, UK (IDS UK), Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar in partnership with NITI Aayog. This event was hosted at the GE Healthcare Centre in Bengaluru.

The conclave deliberated on ways to leverage the transformational potential of these innovations and accelerate progress towards achieving UHC in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) in Asia and Africa. Professor Vinod Paul, Member, NITI Aayog, Shri. Alok Kumar, Advisor (Health), NITI Aayog, Professor K Srinath Reddy, President, PHFI, Ms Desta Lakew, Director, Amref Africa and Mr. Nalinkanth Golagunta, CEO, GE – India was present for the inaugural session.

Professor Vinod Paul, Member NITI Aayog said, “The Government of India’s AYUSHMAN BHARAT is committed to the wellbeing of our citizens. The focus of the health and wellness centers is to ensure disease is prevented and detected early, care that is accessible and closer to home, better health outcomes at lower costs and a platform for health, nutrition, wellness and sanitation. Under the Ayushman Bharat, there will be opportunities for health innovators under various areas to contribute to building stronger health systems for the country.”

Professor K. Srinath Reddy, President, PHFI said, “The Sustainable Development Goals have positioned Universal Health Coverage as a target to be delivered by 2030. These innovations must have relevance, affordability and scalability for impact.”
Ms Desta Lakew, Director Amref Africa said, “The conclave established the need of a working collaboration between India and Africa aimed at documenting factors and facilitating development and integration of innovations into service delivery. We look forward to welcoming some of the discussions and learnings between both the countries as well as steps forward at a follow up meeting in Kigale at the Africa Agenda Summit.”

The Health Technology Assessment Regional Resource Centre (HTARRC) at IIPH Gandhinagar contributed in assessing scalable and replicable models that can be integrated in the health system. The deliberations from the conclave will help frame consensus on scalable models of innovations in healthcare as well as the need for rigorous analysis, not just technical but also on cost-effectiveness of technologies and their fit to advance the agendas of Ayushman Bharat initiative.
The HTA RRC intends to create sensitization and evidence-base on uptake of innovations in health technologies in order to make progress towards Universal Health Coverage in India.

The conclave brought together technology innovators, investors, government officials, public and private sector health service providers from India and Africa to share insights and strategies to encourage health innovation and for transforming health care delivery in Asia and Africa. The deliberations of the conclave will be documented to a white paper to be submitted to NITI Aayog.

The experts on the conclave discussed explored how the creation of new kinds of partnership between public and private sectors covering the following areas of Integrating/ bundling discrete innovations to improve access, delivery and affordability of healthcare services, the role of regulations and regulators in encouraging the development and application at scale of innovations for meeting the health care needs of vulnerable populations.

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