Health Partnership Group in Vietnam: a year looking back and development strategy Dr.Tran Thi Giang Huong, Director General, International Cooperation Department, Ministry of Health, Vietnam 24 March 2011

What is HPG?  The HPG has been operational since  The HPG is a joint forum led by the Ministry of Health (MOH), with the participation of development partners, other government ministries, provinces and NGOs.  The official policy dialogue forum for developing reliable partnership, mobilizing and effectively coordinating external aid for the health sector in line with the sector priorities. Objectives  To comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness of support from DPs to the Health sector and aid coordination and transparency;  To minimize double-counting and fragmentation in Health aid coordination;  To accelerate multidisciplinary approach as well as to attract participation of relevant government units and DPs in order to reach health objectives

What is HPG? (cont.) HPG commits to the three principles drawn from the Hanoi Core Statement Strengthen country ownership over development Building more effective and inclusive partnerships for development Delivering and accounting for development results In March 2009, the Ministry of Health of Vietnam and the DPs agreed on the Statement of Intent (SOI), which aimed at Better harmonizing financial resources and technical efforts, Improving alignment behind government plans and strategies, Making better use of country systems

In 2010, HPG has finalize the final version of the matrix and sent to DPs Annual exercise between MoH and DPs A tool to connect closely with the implementation of the five year health plan 30 donors provided information Key results: Bilateral donors rank the highest in providing information for the matrix (43.3%), the next is INGO. The matrix is still lacking of programs and projects from UN which may underestimate the all funds for health sector. By the budget scale, 10 largest DPs are: WB, ADB, AP, Austria, KfW, EC, GB, the Nertherlands, Embassy of Finland and USAID. The first three largest DPs have 50% of the total budget registered in Proportion of fund supported under the type of grant is decreasing, replaced by other types such as loan or mix. Milestone 1 - Develop the Matrix of development partners’ support to the health sector in Vietnam

MOH manages 83/269 activities and 58,6% of total fund Large amount of activities implemented at provincial level (more than 40%) Total fund and activities mainly for the Preventive medicine (111 activities and USD of fund, of which HIV/AIDS related activities account for 26,1% of number activities and 22,9% of total fund Within examination and treatment, the largest fund is for the medical equipments and infrastructure (with 17 activities both and 38,6% of total fund), the next is the hospital services and capacity strengthening

 Finalized the study on harmonization with specific recommendations on the establishment of the TA component to be in line with the five year health plan  The workshop on TA on harmonization to be organized in 2011 in three principles: Field visits to local provinces with TA activities to examine the advantages, disadvantages, and needs to have more contribution to TA workshop DPs with experiences with TA will contribute more ideas and inputs based on their practical activities Linkages with the implementation of the five year health plan  Establish a working plan to incorporate the TA activities with the five year health plan regarding aid effectiveness including : the preparations (core team meeting on proposed areas, kickoff activities and workshops, component designs, TWGs on TA and etc), implementation for 2011 and following years, M&E…  Call for support for this significant activity Milestone 2 - Study on Harmonization and Alignment of TA in the Health sector

Milestone 5 – Adopt the HPG forum and the HPG Secretariat Results:  Developed HPG structure and HPG Secretariat  Formulation of TWGs with guidance note, technical proposals, and TORs  Developed annual master work plan of HPG  Conducted the survey on existing working groups in health  Implementation of field trips to provincial levels  Developed HPG and ICD websites with regular updates  TA working on funding mechanism for HPG

Milestone 5 -HPG Structure SECRETARIAT: COORDINATOR CO ADMINISTRATOR POOL OF TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TECHNICAL WORKING GROUPS TWG 1 TWG 2 TWG 3 LEADERSHIPS OF ICD OTHER GROUPS LINKED TO HEALTH HPG PLENARY -Co-chairs -Other participants HEALTH PARTNERSHIP GROUP MINISTER OF HEALTH Aid Effectiveness Forum (AEF) (MPI)

Milestone 5 -Technical Working Groups and Other groups linked to health 9  Complete Term of Reference Guideline on creation of technical working groups under HPG  To support departments to develop the proposals and TOR to establish TWGs (for instance, Enhancing the capacity of environment protections of health agencies; Evidences of impacts of climate changes in health…)  One technical working groups under HPG has been officially established: "Reproductive Health Affinity Group" (Dep of Mother and Children Health)  The coming TWG: Health Environment Management Group, which is led by Health Environment Management Agency

Milestone 5 -Technical Working Groups and Other groups linked to health 10 Next step: Continue to establish technical working groups under HPG basing on actual needs and interests of all parties Start-up supports for TWGs: administration procedures, proposals and TORs comments and suggestions, kick-off meetings facilitation Facilitate the following implementation of TWGs

Milestone 5 -Linkages  HPG is regarded to be one of the most positive forum in aid effectiveness  At the national level: Closely connect with and effective contribute to AEF activities in aids; Link with other groups such as to be chair of the PCG, co-chair of PAHI, participate in the Global Fund and HIV/AIDS  At the international level: became the official member of IHP+, (5/2010) and JANS process on five year health plan, participated the IHP+ Country Health Sector Teams Meeting in Brussels in December 2010 and continually promote the linkage with the international health orientations  At the local level: link, share, and disseminate HPG activities to local levels via alternative activities such as field trips, and at conferences/meetings 11

Milestone 5-Fieldtrips to provincial levels 12  To promote understandings between DPs, local provinces and HPG  To identify the gap for IC interventions and collecting the input to the international cooperation strategy and plan on aid management and coordination at provinces  To set up the official network with IC focal points in the sectors, including aid effectiveness  To promote the productive, pro-active of local provinces in IC  To well-inform provinces of the HPG activities to enhance the participation of provinces to HPG and to strengthen their voices and contributions  To bring HPG closed to local provinces by piloting the provincial HPG

Milestone 5-Fieldtrips to provincial levels Results:  Every-two month frequent  In 2010, ICD and HPG Secretariat have conducted 4 fruitful fieldtrips to the provinces : Thai Nguyen, Hai Phong and HCM city and Can tho  In 2011, ICD and HPG Secretariat have had a field trip to Ha Giang province.  Coming fieldtrips to Yen bai, Daklak, Danang, Quynhon/Nhatrang, and Kiengiang provinces  Follow up activities after fieldtrips: field trip reports and news upload on web, meeting minutes to provincial health departments for action plans, frequent cooperation between the MoH and provincial levels, provincial health leadership to participate in the HPG, better linkages and information share among national and subnational levels

Milestone 5- Communication strategy  Introduce official website of HPG and ICD  Continue improving HPG and ICD website (add more function, update information regularly)  Working on communication strategy and promotion plan  Better disseminate the HPG results

Milestone 5- Financial mechanism for HPG TA to develop a stable funding mechanism and improve the HPG structure and organization toward an effective and productive performance in the new context of national development Goals  Providing suggestions to better complete the organizational structure, functions, responsibilities, operating procedures, financial guarantee, necessary logistics for the effective and sustainable activities of the HPG aimed at enhancing international aid coordination, improving transparency and accountability, contributing to implementation of the five-year plan of the health sector.  Develop recommendations on the working and funding mechanism and principles and etc in order to improve the HPG activities and subsequently support the implementation of the five year health plan  Develop the roadmap of the sustainable and effective funding mechanism and management for the HPG  Better improve the HPG Secretariat TOR base on the actual activities and situation and needs in the new context of national development

Milestone 5- Financial mechanism for HPG Expected Outputs  Report and roadmap outline  Executive report and policy brief  Recommendation report proposes recommendations on completing organizational structure, functions, responsibilities, operating procedures to improve the performance of the HPG.  The full report of operating principles, term of reference for the HPG Secretariat, including the stable and sustainable funding mechanism, based on practice and need. List of interviewers, documents, and data which are examined and used  A roadmap (organizational structure with specific steps) to establish the funding mechanism for HPG  Supporting documents on the technical and financial management of the HPG

Milestone 6 - Transparency, timeliness and accuracy of financial information provided by DPs  Draft ToR created  Consultation planned with MOH and DPs on ToR  Input is the output and process of completing Matrix of Development partners’ activities  International and national TA will work on this Milestone under technical and financial contribution of DPs

Milestone 9- Evaluate the alignment of DPs support with the 5 year health plan  Base on the 5 year health plan and result of MS 1  Contribute to the “financing gap analysis” for the 5 year health plan  MS1, MS 6 and MS 9 are complementary: information from DP needs to be timely, accurate and transparent in order to assess the degree of alignment with 5 year health plan  Proposed to combine 2 MS together

HPG: Opportunities  Strong political willing and commitment and closely direct the promotion of aid effectiveness  Better coordination and networking among sub- national levels and line ministries on health issues  Active and effective supports from the international community, especially the development partners such as WHO, GTZ, Unicef, EC, UNFPA, PEPFAR  Strong resource mobilization of heath aid among macro and micro levels and from international aids

HPG: Challenges  HPG is a huge forum with wide sector approaches that may be difficult to coordinate and adjust interests and benefits  Different development partners with different philosophy of funding mechanism, timing, monitoring and evaluation, which may be difficult to allocate fund and process the activities  HPG performance depends on MoH leaders’ and development partners’ schedules, subsequently it is hard to well foreseen the dates for meetings  New context of international cooperation and integration (i.e. SEDP of , five year health plan, MIC status, and etc)

HPG work plan 2011 and vision to 2015: Main areas  Main Area 1 – Implementation of the existed and new Milestones in the SOI  Main Area 2 –Workshop, conferences, and trainings  Main Area 3 – Capacity building for aid coordination and mobilization  Main Area 4 – Information collation and dissemination for networking improvement sub-nationally, nationally and internationally  Main area 5: Technical Assistance to be in line with 5 year health plan  Main area 6: Policy research, gap analysis and action plans

Thank you for your attention!