The Ministry of Health on Tuesday convened a high-level consultative forum in Nairobi to deliberate on the establishment of the Kenya Health Policy Platform (HPP) and Reform Acceleration Platform.
The forum brought together national and county government leaders, development partners, and health sector stakeholders to address emerging system challenges, including constrained financing, evolving disease patterns, and fragmented policy implementation.
Speaking in Nairobi, the Principal Secretary for Medical Services, Ouma Oluga, said the challenges have reinforced the need for a more coordinated, government-led approach to accelerate progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
He reaffirmed that UHC is a constitutional right and a core pillar of Taifa Care and the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).
He emphasised that the proposed Platform will not introduce new structures, but will align existing reform efforts, financing decisions, and multi-stakeholder actions to deliver more equitable health outcomes.
The Health Policy Platform is designed to strengthen health financing by aligning domestic and external resources, accelerate the scale-up of high-impact innovations, and enhance performance management and accountability through data-driven tools and joint reviews.
It will also prioritise maternal and newborn health, with a focus on underserved and high-burden regions, in line with national UHC commitments.
The consultative process will continue over the coming weeks, with stakeholder inputs expected within nine days.
“These will be consolidated by the end of January, validated in early February, and the Platform is anticipated to be fully operational by March, marking a significant milestone in Kenya’s health sector reform agenda”, he stated.
