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Focus areas

UNDP contributes to countries progress on Universal Health Coverage through developing resilient and sustainable systems for health.

Capacity development is central to all of UNDP’s work, with a focus on strengthening national systems for health, to ensure that country infrastructure, systems, and procedures are enhanced in key focus areas vital to a strong health system.

UNDP prioritizes the following focus areas:

Programme management

Financial management for health

Health information systems

Procurement & supply chain management

Law, rights and policy support

Innovation and technologies for health

Solar for health

Non-communicable diseases

UNDP works with national governments, national coordinating bodies, such as national coordinating bodies (NACs), NGOs and small civil society groups to assess and strengthen these focus areas through a participatory process and an applied methodology developed and tested on the ground.

Programme management for health

Effective programme management aims to deliver health services that are safe, accessible, high quality, people-centred, and integrated, to ensure universal health coverage. Health service delivery systems should consider the whole spectrum of care from promotion and prevention to delivery of care in order to provide integrated health services. Resilient and sustainable systems for health focus on the need to support countries in moving towards universal health coverage, through improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their health service delivery systems.

This section focuses on:

  • core elements of programme management and the need to start from the development of national health strategies
  • the importance of human resources for health
  • guidance on managing implementing partners
1Assess the best models for service delivery based on national plans and stakeholder dialogue
2Ensure that enough health workers are trained and motivated to meet countries' needs
3Collect and analyse relevant reliable data to inform decision making
4Guarantee essential medicines and other health technologies are safe, effective and affordable
5Budget and monitor expenditure
6Manage and support other implementing partners
7Relate programme achievements back to national health strategies and plans to ensure the optimal use of available country resources
Stakeholder    involvement

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Financial management for health

Planning
Budgeting and forecasting
Revenue generation
Expenditure
Monitoring and routine controls
Reporting
Audit and assurance
UNDP strengthens financial management systems to increase accountability and promote the achievement of national health goals. Financial management and systems capacities are required to plan, direct, and control financial resources so that organizational objectives can be effectively and efficiently achieved. Financial management must therefore be integrated into the overall management of the organization, with close coordination between financial planning and budgeting, and between the planning and delivery of programmatic results

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Health information systems

Strengthening health information systems (HIS) is critical to establishing a more resilient and sustainable health system. Achieving national goals requires reliable data, in order to understand the scale of the work to be done, and to make good decisions about how to allocate resources for the most efficient and effective results. Having quality data also ensures that information is available on the vulnerable groups and key populations most affected by health issues, to ensure that services include activities are tailored to their specific needs.

This section focuses on:

  • the importance of health information to achieve results
  • key elements of strengthening health information systems
  • data—its sources and its uses—and the increasing importance of ICT in sourcing and managing health data

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Health products procurement and supply chain management

UNDP is taking a lead globally to support countries in the procurement of health products and to strengthen national supply chains in some of the most challenging operating environments. The expertise built through 15 years of supporting procurement and supply chain management (PSM) in such contexts is being used to deliver value for money, quality assurance and reliability for domestically funded health products procurement and to support ongoing development of national procurement systems.

QA LMIS Policy
Selection
Quantification
Procurement Sustainable Procurement
Storage Solar for Health
Distribution
Use Waste Management

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Innovation and technologies to strengthen systems for health

Seeking out innovations and using technologies is central to UNDP’s approach to supporting resilient and sustainable systems for health. Innovation and technologies for health have the potential to strengthen systems and their resilience to shocks, increase the speed of interventions, improve data quality and reporting, increase accountability and ensure continuity.

This section focuses on examples of UNDP working with national groups to implement innovative solutions to build capacity:

  • digitizing the last mile of the vaccine supply chain using eVIN in India
  • supporting countries to harness the use of solar power to strengthen the sustainable, climate-resilient delivery of essential services
  • financial management technologies, such as the development of real-time public financial management in Zimbabwe
  • innovative health information systems, outlining the collecting and reporting data from district health facilities using mobile technologies

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Solar for Health

UNDP’s Solar for Health initiative supports governments to increase access to quality health services through the installation of solar energy photovoltaic systems (PV), ensuring constant and cost-effective access to electricity, while also mitigating the impact of climate change and advancing multiple Sustainable Development Goals.

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Law, rights and policy support for health

Effective and sustainable health responses require law, rights and policy environments that reduce stigma, discrimination, inequality and violence against all affected populations, and that empower communities to access their health rights and participate in the governance of the national response. This section acts as a guide to strengthen the capacity of partners on how to promote and protect human rights and gender equality, remove barriers to accessing services and foster enabling legal environments for all key populations in national strategies, policies and programmes. It includes examples of successful activities.

This section focuses on:

  • enabling legal environments, explaining what critical enablers are, why human rights and gender equality are important and how responses can be strengthened to reach everyone, including key populations
  • how to identify and remove human rights- and gender-related barriers faced by key populations, foster enabling legal environments and develop effective plans and programmes to increase access

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Non-communicable diseases (NCDs)

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), principally cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory disease, are the world’s leading source of premature death, illness and disability. NCDs are not confined to wealthier nations—nearly 75% of NCD deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), as do over 85% of premature NCD deaths.

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