The Health Systems Flagship Program is one of the World Bank’s offerings for policy dialogue and capacity building and aims to facilitate a strategic and systematic approach to planning health system reforms that will move countries to Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The Flagship Program offers a flagship core course, deep-dive courses, and self-paced eLearning modules. The flagship core course helps participants better understand complex policy-making processes and interactions between different policies, stakeholders, and determinants of health. It is a structured health systems literacy course to update and share high-level knowledge about health sectors. Deep dive courses and self-paced e-learning modules provide policymakers with a more focused “how to” approach for addressing the implementation challenges they face in achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The Flagship Program has continued for over two decades and remains highly demanded by national governments and development partners.
Core Course
The Health Systems Flagship Core Course is open to participants from inside and outside of the World Bank. The Global Flagship (Core) Course is offered once or twice a year. In 2022, it reached almost 1,000 participants from countries in all Regions in five different languages. The Flagship Core Course can also be tailored for on individual country, to a region, or to a group of countries that share a common language and or common challenges.
The objective of the Flagship Core Course on Health Sector Reform and Sustainable Financing is to help participants think strategically and systematically about health sector reform and the challenges in achieving that reform. The course is not a deep dive for any specific technical area, rather it seeks to help participants better understand the complexity behind policy making and challenges of implementation to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The Flagship Core Course has been in existence for 25 years. The course has been delivered to 36,000+ participants in 70+ countries.
The Flagship Core Course presents a foundation for conceptualizing a systems-based approach to health. The course recommends a systems-based approach to identify the necessary policy levers for achieving desired health system objectives. Rather than offering a prescriptive predetermined list of interventions, the course presents options to policy makers. It enables them to consider the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches. It helps course participants to define their challenges. It provides them with information that enables them to come to their own decisions.
Figure 1. The World Bank Health Systems Flagship Program Framework
The Flagship framework addresses multiple and simultaneous changes that may occur in the reform of a health system. Participants are taught how to think about health system reform in a strategic and comprehensive manner, and how to put learned theory into action. The course shares the pros and cons of different options for improving the performance of a health system. It enables course participants to build more evidence on how to implement positive changes successfully. The course also shares country experiences, what works as well as lessons learned on what to avoid.
The value of this course lays in the fact that it considers the reality each country faces, its cultural, political, and ethical contexts, as well as its objectives, capabilities, and constraints in conducting health system reform.
The course content is adjusted to fit the needs of its practitioners during times of global challenges and situations such as those presented by the outbreak of Ebola in 2015 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Testimonials “Getting to learn from the various Bank facilitators with different backgrounds, deep knowledge and practical experience, they were able to illustrate their instructive materials with real life examples which made concepts easy to understand and relate.”
“I had the opportunity of learning different and new concepts all together. The whole experience was eye opening for me. I learnt that the data we collect daily should inform programming for the next programs and projects.”
“It was most valuable to learn problem diagnosis: getting to the root cause, establishing winning strategies and finding an effective solution”
“Sharing of country experiences re-enforced learning and allowed for the application of theories and concepts to country-specific situations”
“This is one of the advance learning platforms I have been enrolled in. The facilitators pinpoint the solutions we can use in addressing health issues and they seek for our opinion through the pooling”
Technical/Deep-Dive Courses
The Flagship Program’s unique approach to health systems thinking allows for a more organized and efficient approach to health system reform. However, our empirical knowledge has shown us that the conversation does not stop there. From our field experience we learned that countries have a need for deeper understanding of certain topics. This prompted the creation of technical deep dive courses.
Deep-Dive courses complement and are often held after the Flagship Health Systems Flagship Core Courses. These Deep Dive "How-To" courses focus on a specific technical topic within the Flagship Course and provide Flagship course participants and alumni an opportunity to further apply the technical knowledge gained from the Flagship Course and share their own experiences with shared challenges. Flagship Deep Dive Courses also can be requested by World Bank Health Services Task Team Leaders and tailored to meet specialized needs of their client country counterparts, example to have a focused policy dialogue on a specialized topic such as eHealth systems.
Self-Paced Courses
The Health Systems Flagship Program has developed self-paced courses to reach a wider audience and to allow more time for discussion in a virtual setting. The modules are technical courses that complement the core courses and are focused on one specific aspect of health system strengthening. A total of 5 courses are offered:
These courses are available on the World Bank’s Open Learning Campus (OLC) website. Note several of these self-paced courses are available in English, French, and Spanish.
The Health Systems Flagship program is supported by funding from the Japan Policy and Human Resources Development Fund.
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Awesome insights from the flagship course that have changed my approach to health sector challenges and indeed opportunities within the broader health system rather than sticking to a narrow view based on specific sub-sectors within the health sector.
Blog » About the Health Systems Flagship Program
About the Health Systems Flagship Program
The Health Systems Flagship Program is one of the World Bank’s offerings for policy dialogue and capacity building and aims to facilitate a strategic and systematic approach to planning health system reforms that will move countries to Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The Flagship Program offers a flagship core course, deep-dive courses, and self-paced eLearning modules. The flagship core course helps participants better understand complex policy-making processes and interactions between different policies, stakeholders, and determinants of health. It is a structured health systems literacy course to update and share high-level knowledge about health sectors. Deep dive courses and self-paced e-learning modules provide policymakers with a more focused “how to” approach for addressing the implementation challenges they face in achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The Flagship Program has continued for over two decades and remains highly demanded by national governments and development partners.
Core Course
The Health Systems Flagship Core Course is open to participants from inside and outside of the World Bank. The Global Flagship (Core) Course is offered once or twice a year. In 2022, it reached almost 1,000 participants from countries in all Regions in five different languages. The Flagship Core Course can also be tailored for on individual country, to a region, or to a group of countries that share a common language and or common challenges.
The objective of the Flagship Core Course on Health Sector Reform and Sustainable Financing is to help participants think strategically and systematically about health sector reform and the challenges in achieving that reform. The course is not a deep dive for any specific technical area, rather it seeks to help participants better understand the complexity behind policy making and challenges of implementation to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The Flagship Core Course has been in existence for 25 years. The course has been delivered to 36,000+ participants in 70+ countries.
The Flagship Core Course presents a foundation for conceptualizing a systems-based approach to health. The course recommends a systems-based approach to identify the necessary policy levers for achieving desired health system objectives. Rather than offering a prescriptive predetermined list of interventions, the course presents options to policy makers. It enables them to consider the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches. It helps course participants to define their challenges. It provides them with information that enables them to come to their own decisions.
Figure 1. The World Bank Health Systems Flagship Program Framework
The Flagship framework addresses multiple and simultaneous changes that may occur in the reform of a health system. Participants are taught how to think about health system reform in a strategic and comprehensive manner, and how to put learned theory into action. The course shares the pros and cons of different options for improving the performance of a health system. It enables course participants to build more evidence on how to implement positive changes successfully. The course also shares country experiences, what works as well as lessons learned on what to avoid.
The value of this course lays in the fact that it considers the reality each country faces, its cultural, political, and ethical contexts, as well as its objectives, capabilities, and constraints in conducting health system reform.
The course content is adjusted to fit the needs of its practitioners during times of global challenges and situations such as those presented by the outbreak of Ebola in 2015 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Testimonials
“Getting to learn from the various Bank facilitators with different backgrounds, deep knowledge and practical experience, they were able to illustrate their instructive materials with real life examples which made concepts easy to understand and relate.”
“I had the opportunity of learning different and new concepts all together. The whole experience was eye opening for me. I learnt that the data we collect daily should inform programming for the next programs and projects.”
“It was most valuable to learn problem diagnosis: getting to the root cause, establishing winning strategies and finding an effective solution”
“Sharing of country experiences re-enforced learning and allowed for the application of theories and concepts to country-specific situations”
“This is one of the advance learning platforms I have been enrolled in. The facilitators pinpoint the solutions we can use in addressing health issues and they seek for our opinion through the pooling”
Technical/Deep-Dive Courses
The Flagship Program’s unique approach to health systems thinking allows for a more organized and efficient approach to health system reform. However, our empirical knowledge has shown us that the conversation does not stop there. From our field experience we learned that countries have a need for deeper understanding of certain topics. This prompted the creation of technical deep dive courses.
Deep-Dive courses complement and are often held after the Flagship Health Systems Flagship Core Courses. These Deep Dive "How-To" courses focus on a specific technical topic within the Flagship Course and provide Flagship course participants and alumni an opportunity to further apply the technical knowledge gained from the Flagship Course and share their own experiences with shared challenges. Flagship Deep Dive Courses also can be requested by World Bank Health Services Task Team Leaders and tailored to meet specialized needs of their client country counterparts, example to have a focused policy dialogue on a specialized topic such as eHealth systems.
Self-Paced Courses
The Health Systems Flagship Program has developed self-paced courses to reach a wider audience and to allow more time for discussion in a virtual setting. The modules are technical courses that complement the core courses and are focused on one specific aspect of health system strengthening. A total of 5 courses are offered:
These courses are available on the World Bank’s Open Learning Campus (OLC) website. Note several of these self-paced courses are available in English, French, and Spanish.