Hey, guess what big meeting just happened today?
Cambodia’s Minister of Health, H.E. Prof. Chheang Ra, met up with the World Bank’s Country Director, Ms. Mariam Sherman, at the Ministry. They basically got together to make their partnership even stronger. The whole goal is to seriously step up the quality of healthcare in Cambodia and get closer to what they call Universal Health Coverage (UHC)—which basically means great health care for everyone!
Minister Chheang Ra gave Ms. Sherman a huge, warm welcome and expressed a ton of thanks for the World Bank. He said their steady technical know-how and money have been absolutely key to making life better for Cambodian people.
He even gave a shout-out to some specific big projects the World Bank helped with, like initiatives for better nutrition (CNP), improving the training for new health professionals, and a major project called H-EQIP II that works on making healthcare fair and high-quality. Oh, and the Bank helped a lot during the COVID-19 response, too!
Ms. Sherman replied by confirming that the World Bank is absolutely committed to helping Cambodia’s health sector for the long haul. She noted that their support in recent years has played a huge part in getting the country closer to achieving UHC. She also complimented the Cambodian government for being so dedicated to public health, highlighting the strong, long-term friendship between the Ministry and the World Bank.
They spent most of the discussion focusing on the Ministry’s big plans and figuring out the best ways to keep working with partners like the World Bank. A big part of the chat was reviewing how well current and finishing projects (like the nutrition program and H-EQIP II) were going, what challenges they ran into, and how they plan to fix them.
To wrap things up, Minister Chheang Ra thanked the World Bank again for all their effort and asked their experts to keep working closely and efficiently with the teams managing the projects.
He stressed that if these programs are successful, it’s going to be a crucial step in the Ministry’s main health plan and the government’s bigger strategy, both of which are focused on one big thing: making sure every single Cambodian citizen gets access to high-quality healthcare.