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Developing Next Generation Health Financing Instruments for Households: Drawing on Lessons Learned

Health shocks are the most prominent idiosyncratic shocks and stresses that low-income households face. Demand for health financing support is often higher than any other financial risk management solution, and demand far exceeds the supply. An improved and expanded choice of health financing options is needed to ensure low-income households have financial instruments to anticipate, respond to, and recover from health events without resulting in increased vulnerability and poverty traps. This will require patient and long-term investments from donors, investors, governments, health service actors and the financial services sector and will require thinking about health financing through an ecosystem lens, where demand generation for and supply of health services and health financing should be designed to intersect.