Welcome and introductions

Mr. Hossam Bahgat, the director of the EIPR

We are speaking today about health expenditure in Egypt, the current reality of it and the challenges it faces. This meeting will mark the beginning of a series of activities sponsored by the Health and Human Rights Program in coordination with the Committee to Defend the Right to Health⁶.  For us, the issue of public health expenditure is a long-standing one, but that makes it no less pressing.

Long-standing is relative, of course, but our interest in health expenditure goes back a few years. In 2006, for example, we issued a statement when the current Minister of Health was appointed in which we expressed our support for demands from the Minister of Health and the Chair of the Health Committee in the People’s Assembly to increase allocations for health in the budget that year; both the MP and the minister had complained of a decrease in spending. Before that, in 2005, we made efforts to acquaint ourselves with the technical issues involved in budgets and budget analysis and their relationship to the defense of social and economic rights by participating in several training workshops organized by the International Budget Project, one of the first organizations doing this sort of work in the field of human rights.

But the issue of public expenditure on health in Egypt is at the same time a pressing, current issue, as illustrated by the forceful debates over the reform of the health sector in the last two years. We have observed that the conversation about health reform in Egypt and the steps taken on the ground or changes in the official discourse have not addressed the level of public health expenditure but instead focus on restructuring and reorganization, whether at the policy or legislative level. Indeed, when health expenditure is mentioned, it is usually limited to a reference to out-of-pocket spending, and not with a view to reducing it, just restructuring it.

We believe the time is right to advance the debate on health expenditure in Egypt. Our meeting today is distinguished by the presence of our two primary speakers, both well-known policy experts. Mr. Abd al-Fattah al-Gebali is an expert in financial policies, and Dr. Alaa Ghanaam is an expert in public health policies. Both men also have experience with the executive authorities and decision makers, Mr. al-Gebali through his relationship with the Ministry of Finance and his work as an advisor on the state budget, and Dr. Ghanaam through his position as the director-general of policies and strategies in the Health Reform Sector Reform Program of the Ministry of Health and Population until April 2008, when we were honored to have him join us at the EIPR as the director of the Health and Human Rights Program.

I believe that our speakers today have much of importance to say. It is not merely policy analysis but also a conversation growing out of their own experiences with the state executive authorities.

I would again like to thank you all for attending. We will first hear from Mr. al-Gebali, followed by Dr. Ghanaam, after which there will be time for questions and discussion.

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[6] The Committee to Defend the Right to Health is an umbrella organization of more than twenty groups and agencies, among them the EIPR. Formed in May 2007 immediately after a prime-ministerial decree established the Egyptian Holding Company for Health Care—which absorbed all national insurance hospitals—the committee opposes the decree and subsequent plans to privatize health insurance.