Social Health Insurance - Systems of Solidarity: Experiences from German Development Cooperation

This paper argues that though a number of nations have committed to the goal of setting up high quality, affordable health care provision, it has not become reality due to limited financial resources of state health services. The possible solution is to set up a health insurance scheme financed on the principle of solidarity.The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) contracted Deutsche Gesellschaft Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH German Technical Cooperation to implement the project 'Elaboration and Introduction of Social Health Insurance Systems in Developing Countries.'

• The objective of the project was to support partner countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America in constructing socially balanced health care systems;
• This, as the paper argues, would result in all sections of population, particularly the poor and disadvantaged groups, in having better access to appropriate health services.

The paper then discusses the experiences of setting up solidarity based health care and health insurance systems in the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The experiences are based on the various pilot projects conducted by GTZ in these countries.