The Road to the SDGs

PURPOSE u The Health Sector Policy focuses on improving the health status, financial protection and responsiveness to citizen satisfaction with the health system while promoting equity. METHOD X The context of the health policy is to provide direction for IsDB to support strengthening the health systems within MCs, especially as many low-income countries and lower-middle income countries are not yet on course to achieve SDG 3 and related targets. Indeed, the technical study, which was conducted as part of MCs’ health situation assessment, concluded to the following main findings: – Maternal and child health, communicable diseases and nutrition deficiencies constitute incomplete agenda items for middle- and low- income MCs – The primary care sector is a common priority for all MCs and for all disease groups – Financial risk protection in middle- and low-income MCs constitutes a significant challenge to UHC objectives – IsDB’s health investments favour hospitals, often tertiary care, with large components devoted to construction and equipment, especially in Asia and MENA regions – Projects lack components that assure the sustainability of activities after their termination – Current evaluation methods are not rigorous enough to provide robust evidence of effective impacts on health performance indicators – IsDB has limited health expertise and funding mechanisms, without which expertise it is less likely to design, assess and support the implementation of more effective projects – The level of concessionary funding, at just 6% of total funding, limits the extent of IsDB’s engagement with low-income countries. X The Health Sector Policy is articulated on the following six pillars, which promote SDG 3 and the related targets and contribute to their realisation in MCs: – Target vulnerable and poor populations — Projects and programmes under IsDB's innovative financing mechanisms should prioritise low-income and lower-middle-income countries, but also vulnerable and poor populations in Health Sector Policy T he policy is centred on the theme “Affordable Quality Health Services for Human Development” The policy considers how IsDB's goals for the sector can be achieved, with particular focus on equity, partnership, R&D, sustainability, and regional and country differentiation [ 36 ] SDGs