(as prepared for delivery)

• H.E Dr. Om Samol, Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Health
• Somil Nagpal, Health Lead of the World Bank and my fellow P4HC+ Co-Convener
• Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen

As co-convener of the P4HC+, I want to welcome you to this important meeting today. P4H was launched a decade ago as a political initiative for social health protection. Since then, P4H has developed into a unique support network for universal health coverage and social health protection. P4H is designed to bring all relevant partners and stakeholders together to:

• Share information and promote dialogue;
• Coordinate multi- and bilateral technical support across sectors; and
• Provide a marketplace for collaboration and complementary investments for scaling up support and filling any support gaps

In Cambodia, P4H began in 2009, and dramatically expanded in 2015 to include a comprehensive cross-section of development partners working in the health, labor, social, and economic sectors. USAID joined at that time to ensure that our efforts to assist the Royal Government of Cambodia in the area of social health protection were tightly coordinated with the efforts of other partners. But long before joining P4H, USAID was committed to expanding access to quality health services at a reasonable cost for all Cambodian citizens.

Today, we’re here to learn more about P4H as a global network, to celebrate Cambodia’s achievements to date, to identify future needs and gaps in programming, and to discuss areas for collaboration in the future. In the move towards UHC, much has been accomplished. We will learn more about these achievements today, but I’d like to highlight a few:

• The National Health Accounts surveys have been institutionalized, and the data is used to mark our successes as well as give direction for future programming.
• The Cambodian government is gradually taking over support for key medicines, health commodities, and supplies previously supported by donors.
• Social protections - such as cash to improve nutrition for pregnant women and children - are being rolled out.
• The Health Equity Fund, which was started by NGOs and supported by USAID and other development partners in the early 2000s, has been scaled up nationwide and now helps 20 percent of the country’s population access healthcare. The Cambodian government has assumed more than half of the cost of HEF and has started to take on its administration with the formation of the Payment Certification Agency.

USAID is proud to have worked with other development partners under the leadership of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economy and Finance toward this great achievement.

As we celebrate these key achievements, we must also acknowledge that much remains to be accomplished. There is still a lot of work to be done to expand HEF and other social health protection schemes to cover vulnerable populations such as the near poor. We also need to find ways to reduce out of pocket expenditures on health and ensure financial and programmatic accountability, including citizen involvement.

We also cannot ignore the role of the private sector. We know that the majority of Cambodians first go to the private sector for healthcare so we need to reinforce linkages between the public and private sectors. We also need to strengthen government oversight of quality of care in private services through the regulation system. Data from private services need to be incorporated into one health information system.

Ladies and gentlemen, together we have come a long way toward our mutual goal of universal health coverage for the Cambodian people. Given Cambodia’s economic success, UHC is within reach. Together, let’s work to achieve it.

A special thanks to GIZ and the World Bank for bringing us all together today. I look forward to our discussions.

Thank you.