Context:
Following years of conflict and destruction, health care in Syria is facing major challenges. Around 15.9 million people urgently require medical assistance. 38 per cent of the country’s hospitals and 59 per cent of its primary health care centres are not functional or only partially functional. Financing is heavily dependent on donors. People who are particularly vulnerable only have limited access to health services. Weakened administrative systems, destroyed infrastructure, a shortage of health professionals and varying standards are leading to unequal health care.
Syria’s Ministry of Health requires support in establishing long-term, equitable financing for quality-assured health services for the population, especially the poor, women, children and people with disabilities. It also needs health data in order to make targeted investments.
Objective:
The necessary conditions for all Syrians to access quality-assured, inclusive and gender-equitable health services, without the risk of poverty, have improved.
Approach:
The project supports Syria’s Ministry of Health and its downstream institutions by providing advisory services, training and studies. This allows the costs of an inclusive, gender-equitable catalogue of services to be analysed, fair fee structures to be defined, and uniform quality standards to be implemented. This improves inclusive and gender-equitable health services – especially for the poor, women, children and people with disabilities. The project also builds expertise in the collection of gender-specific health data and facilitates the use of this data for evidence-based investments and for the early detection of and response to disease outbreaks.
The measures aim to enable the Ministry to better plan and manage health services and provide an equal standard of services to everyone nationwide.