Date: July 16, 2026
Time: 09:00am – 11:00am
Venue: COFE Hotel, Yaoundé

Background

Cameroon’s health financing system remains heavily reliant on out-of-pocket payments, exposing households to financial hardship and limiting access to essential health services. Although the government launched Phase I of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) program in 2023, implementation remains selective and leaves significant segments of the population—particularly informal sector workers and rural communities—without adequate financial protection.

Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) schemes have long been viewed as grassroots mechanisms to improve healthcare access and financial protection among underserved populations. In Cameroon, CBHI initiatives have demonstrated strengths in fostering community trust, promoting risk pooling at the local level, and improving healthcare utilization among members. However, challenges such as limited scale, weak financial sustainability, fragmented governance, and insufficient integration into national health financing frameworks have constrained their broader impact.

The Nkafu Policy Institute’s paper “Lessons from Community-Based Health Insurance for Scaling Universal Health Coverage in Cameroon” highlights critical insights from CBHI experiences and outlines strategic lessons for strengthening and scaling health coverage nationwide. As Cameroon seeks to expand private health insurance (PHI) and accelerate progress toward UHC, these lessons offer valuable guidance on inclusivity, trust-building, risk pooling, governance, and sustainability.

This Operational Working Group (OWG) aims to critically examine the paper’s recommendations and engage key stakeholders in developing a practical roadmap for leveraging CBHI experiences to strengthen and scale universal health coverage in Cameroon, including synergies with private health insurance mechanisms

Objectives

• To examine and validate the recommendations of the policy brief on Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) and its relevance for scaling Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Cameroon.
• To identify policy, regulatory, and institutional gaps limiting the implementation and sustainability of proposed recommendations.
• Develop a practical and time-bound roadmap for leveraging CBHI lessons to strengthen UHC implementation and inform the expansion of inclusive private health insurance mechanisms.

Expected Outputs

The expected outputs are:

• Priority policy insights from the CBHI experience validated by stakeholders and applicable to national UHC and PHI reforms.
• A clear articulation of key reform areas, including governance, financing, risk pooling, community engagement, and institutional coordination.
• A structured roadmap outlining short-, medium-, and long-term actions, identifying responsible actors and strategic entry points for implementation of the validated recommendations.

Target Participants

This Operational Working Group will convene representatives from the Ministry of Public Health, particularly the UHC units, the Ministry of Finance, and relevant regulatory authorities, alongside managers of Community-Based Health Insurance schemes, private health insurance providers, health economists, and health systems researchers. The session will also include civil society organizations, community leaders, and development partners involved in health financing and social protection reforms.

Venue & Date

This OWG will take place on July 16, 2026, at COFE hotel (Yaoundé) from 09:00am – 11:00am.

About the Organizers

• About the Denis And Lenora Foretia Foundation

The Denis & Lenora Foretia Foundation was established to accelerate Africa’s economic transformation by focusing on social entrepreneurship, science and technology, innovation, public health and progressive policies that create economic opportunities for all. The foundation works in partnership with local governments, policy makers, private enterprises, civil society organizations as well as development partners to expand the resources available to entrepreneurs, farmers, and small business owners in addition to improving individual livelihoods.

• About the Nkafu Policy Institute

The Nkafu Policy Institute is an African think tank with a mission to provide independent, in-depth and insightful policy recommendations that allows all Africans to prosper in free, fair, democratic and sustainable economies. The Institute is made up of analysts, experts and researchers from all over the world, working on a wide range of topics, including governance and democracy, health and education, peace and security, science and technology, and economic policy.