Expert group meeting on health financing in Sri Lanka - World Health Organization (WHO)

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a double crisis - a health emergency and a possible economic disaster. Experts predict that the impacts of the pandemic will continue long after the virus itself is contained. The most intuitive economic consequence of an epidemic is increased health care costs that result from scaling up the public health response and building case management capacity in the health system. However, the primary economic impact stems from the significant restrictions of economic activities due to prevention measures, such as the suspension of travel between countries and lockdown measures within countries. Currently, the world is experiencing a massive global economic contraction, causing a rise in unemployment, poverty, and inequality. To compound the crisis, countries are experiencing a decline in public revenues, remittances, and household incomes. Most countries have significantly increased borrowing to mitigate the effects of the crisis. While higher borrowing may mitigate the immediate impact; rising debt levels will likely imply fiscal pressures for many years to come.

Thus far, Sri Lanka has been successful in controlling COVID-19 due to its robust and resilient health system and committed workforce. It is critical to build on these strengths and gains. Additionally, continuing to explore opportunities to further strengthen the system’s capacity to deal with future epidemics and public health emergencies such as natural disasters, dengue and other emerging threats is a priority. (WHO 2020). The Oxford University Stringency Index suggests that Sri Lanka’s lockdown was one of the most stringent in the region during its operation (Hale et al 2020) as measured by indices such as daily border closings, school closings, etc. WHO, in collaboration with ADB and World Bank organized an “Expert Group Meeting on Health Financing in Sri Lanka” on the 7th of September 2020 at the WHO Country Office for Sri Lanka with the participation of key government officials, development partners and technical experts to stimulate discussions and explore ways to sustainably finance the health system.