The COVID-19 pandemic made it clear that social protection systems, and health systems in particular, are crucial instruments for societies to cope with the immediate negative social and economic effects of such a crisis, while at the same time being essential to engage in sustainable recoveries with more systemic resilience. This is particularly important in a region such as Latin America and the Caribbean, which has high levels of inequality, in all dimensions. In this challenging context, countries in the region have only partially built social protection systems able to reach universal health coverage.

This project aims to improve the capacity of selected countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to design, adapt and implement institutional and policy frameworks for comprehensive, sustainable, and resilient health systems, in order to decrease the region’s health inequalities. The project will focus on building capacities of selected countries in three areas: (a) implementing effective strategies and policies to achieve universal health coverage in specific institutional and critical areas sensitive to differences (such as gender and disabilities); (b) strengthening the political commitment and consensus to gradually achieve universal health coverage through sustainable financing; and (c) improving institutional coordination within health systems and with social protection systems, especially to address the pandemic and/or catastrophic events.