On Thursday August 26, 2025, an information meeting on the national forum on health financing was held in the conference room of the Ministry of Health’s human resources department. Organized by the ST-RFS, the meeting, chaired by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Health, brought together several players from the Ministry of Health, RESADE, the Caisse Nationale d’Assurance Maladie Universelle (CNAMU), technical and financial partners (Gates Foundation, UNICEF, WHO, UNFPA, CHAI, ThinkWell), players from the private health sector and civil society organizations (CSOs). In addition, some players, such as the World Bank, took part in the meeting remotely via Zoom.
The aim of the meeting was to bring all stakeholders up to speed on the organization of the forum on health financing in Burkina Faso. More specifically, the aim was to present the forum’s concept note, to present and amend the roadmap, and to discuss the responsibilities of the stakeholders. The working methodology was participatory, involving a succession of presentations and discussions.
The forum’s concept note was presented by the Technical Secretary for Health Financing Reforms (ST/RFS). He pointed out that, despite the significant progress made in healthcare in Burkina Faso in recent decades, major challenges remain in terms of healthcare financing (low public funding, low contribution of the private sector to healthcare financing, low pooling of resources and coordination of players, limits to strategic purchasing). In the face of these challenges, combined with the scarcity of external resources and the need to concentrate resources in the fight against insecurity, it makes sense to reflect on ways of improving the financing of Burkina Faso’s healthcare system. The forum on health financing has been initiated to meet this need. In this sense, the forum is intended to be a forum for reflection on health financing, rather than a framework for raising funds for health financing.
Following this presentation, the floor was given to RESADE to add to the background to the birth of the forum initiative, as well as the process of drafting and validating the concept note.
The discussions that followed enabled participants to ask questions to better understand the initiative, and to make suggestions. These suggestions included the involvement in the process of certain partners from civil society and the private sector, whose presence would bring added value to the forum. Overall, they judged the forum to be highly relevant to the national and international context outlined above.
Having set the scene, the ST/RFS presented the roadmap to participants for amendment, with a provisional date of October 23-25, 2025. Participants reviewed the roadmap for a complete update, and maintained the proposal to hold the forum in October 2025. According to the participants, this date is of particular importance as the reflections arising from this forum could influence to some extent the discussions relating to the budget for the 2026 financial year. In view of the very busy schedule of the Ministry’s players in these end-of-year periods, it was suggested that the technical support of a structure should be sought, which would be the Ministry’s technical arm to work upstream and support the National Organizing Committee (NOC) in the practical implementation of the forum’s preparatory activities. RESADE should be this technical arm, and it was proposed that a specific agreement be drawn up between the Ministry of Health and RESADE to provide a framework for their collaboration on the forum.
