Tagliente’s Journey with NHIMA, Zambia, in Monitoring Social Health Insurance

In the heart of Zambia’s socio-economic landscape, where challenges meet resilience, the National Health Insurance Management Authority (NHIMA) stands tall with a vision for universal healthcare coverage. Amidst the backdrop of a nation striving to alleviate poverty, the COVID-19 pandemic added urgency to addressing social health protection, especially for those in the informal economy and vulnerable groups of people. Founded through the National Health Insurance Act, NHIMA is on a quest to provide healthcare coverage to all Zambians. However, a crucial gap exists as the majority, including the poor, vulnerable people, and informal sector workers, struggle to access social health insurance services.

In response to NHIMA’s call, the International Labour Organization (ILO) stepped in, spearheading an actuarial analysis exercise. The focus was to estimate the cost of expanding coverage and ensure the long-term impact and sustainability of NHIMA. NHIMA’s journey towards inclusivity includes gradually onboarding Social Cash Transfer (SCT) beneficiaries, starting in 2024.

Contracted by ILO, Tagliente delivered to NHIMA a capacity-building activity on monitoring social health insurance. The training, spanning 2.5 days in December 2023, was a dynamic blend of presentations and group work, providing NHIMA’s staff with the expertise needed to manage the expansion of beneficiaries and shape the scheme’s monitoring framework.

The collaborative journey between NHIMA, ILO, and Tagliente promises to be transformative. Through this training, NHIMA was not just gaining insights; it’s crafting a roadmap towards a sustainable and inclusive healthcare future for all Zambians.

Slovakia: The Catching-Up Regions Initiative for the World Bank

Tagliente contributed to the finalization of two World Bank (WB) reports for the Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region and the Košice region. This project with the WB falls under the Catching-Up Regions Initiative (CuRI), which aims to give less developed regions of Slovakia practical technical assistance to overcome specific development barriers that are identified by local authorities.

Slovakia is a powerful example of national convergence and subnational divergence in the EU. Despite Slovakia being one of the EU’s economic successes for its impressive economic growth, it also has some of the EU’s highest regional disparities in economic development. Slovakia’s impressive economic gains over the last two decades largely concentrated in the capital region of Bratislava, while other regions lagged, including Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region and the Košice region.

The report for the Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region carried out a situation analysis of the human resources for health, with particular focus on general practitioners (GPs) and nurses. It then identified effective policy and planning responses to support the Self-Governing Region in tackling the challenge of having too few, too old, and too far-away GPs and nurses.

The report for the Košice region was a rapid assessment of health and social care. The goal of the report was to analyze the main health and social care issues in the Košice region, particularly for the older people (over 65 years), disadvantaged people, and people with disabilities, and propose actionable recommendations to achieve more integrated care.

Moldova: Real-time evaluation “Reform of mental health services”

With the planned pull-out of SDC from MENSANA, Tagliente will provide real-time feedback to national and local stakeholders to facilitate the sustainability of community mental health practice.  The transition of the project  from donor-funded to national government is a delicate process that requires building trust; ensuring resources; alignement with health priorities of the Government; strong national and local leadership; and, advocacy activities to persuade key policymakers to support the project’s sustainability in the long-run.