Health Systems and Services

About us

The primary objective of the Department of Health Systems and Services is to strengthen health systems based on Primary Health Care, supporting progress towards universal health coverage and universal access to health. Its work encompasses the following areas: strengthening of health systems governance and stewardship; strengthening of regulatory frameworks for medicines and health technologies, and developing efficient and equitable financial mechanisms to ensure adequate public funding of the health system and proper financial protection for the progressive realization of the right to health; organizing people-centered, integrated health service delivery; promoting access to and rational use of quality, safe, and effective health technologies; strengthening national health research systems, and promoting the integration of scientific knowledge into health care, health policies, and technical cooperation; and developing human resources for health.

Programmatic Areas

Health Services and Access

Human Resources for Health

Medicines and Health Technologies

PAHO Strategic Fund

Access to quality medicines and health supplies for all in the Americas

Bioethics

Research ethics and public health ethics.

Migration and Health in the Americas

Regional networks and platforms

VCPH - Virtual Campus of Public Health. Building knowledge to practice.

PANDHR - The Pan American Network for Drug Regulatory Harmonization is an initiative of the national regulatory authorities within the Region.

ACHR - The Advisory Committee on Health Research is part of the system of advisory committees of the World Health Organization (WHO).

PRAIS - Regional Platform on Access and Innovation for Health Technologies with the goal to improve access to essential medicines, biologicals and diagnostics in the region.

RedETSA - Regional Base of Health Technology Assessment Reports of the Americas.

Regional Platform to Advance the Manufacturing of COVID-19 Vaccines and other Health Technologies in the Americas

Dashboards

The External Funding Operations to Health Systems Dashboard is an initiative of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) for tracking funding operations from the main financial institutions and donors to the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The scope of the database is the loans and grants approved since the formal start of the pandemic in March 2020. The operations registered in the database include the financing of health and non-health activities.

International financial institutions and donors have approved more than 1,200 funding operations for Latin America and the Caribbean countries since March 2020.
More than 300 funding operations are directed to support health systems and the COVID-19 health response.
Funding for health and other sectors reached US$ 183,189.6 million by the end of 2021.
From the above, the approved funds for health systems account for US$ 6,940.1 million (3.8% of the total) by the end of 2021.
From the approved health system funds, allocations related to COVID reached US$ 5,045.4 million in 2021.
The funds allocated for COVID19 vaccination programs reached US$ 2,350 million by the end of 2021, accounting for 33.9% of the total.
The amount of approved funds for health seems to have lost steam in 2022. As of May 2022, approved operations only accounted for US$ 483 million, of which 38.5% aim to fund COVID-19 vaccines.

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Mapping of policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks on health and migration in the region of the Americas, with a human rights-based approach: The interactive dashboard maps the policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks on health and migration with a human rights-based approach in 19 countries of the Americas, at the national and international levels. This resource is aimed at guiding decision-makers and actors from different sectors tasked with developing, updating, and improving policies, laws, legislative and regulatory frameworks, plans, and programs so that they include protection of the health of migrants in a comprehensive manner.

Access the dashboard