From 20 to 22 May 2024, Sri Lanka conducted a resource mapping (REMAP) exercise for the new National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS) operational plan utilizing the REMAP tool developed by the World Health Organization. Sri Lanka is the first country in the South-East Asia region and the 23rd country globally that utilized the REMAP tool.

Over 70 national technical experts and finance specialists from the 19 technical areas, staff from the different departments of the Ministry of Finance and Finance Commission took part in the event alongside partners from World Bank, Asian Development Bank, JICA, FHI 360, United Nations Agencies and technical representatives from the three levels of WHO.

The REMAP tool was used to identify and map the available funding (government and donor committed funds).  The tool enables to review the progress and monitoring of the 12–24 months costed e-NAPHS operational plan.  

These efforts are aligned with the lessons learnt during the previous NAPHS implementation and also take into consideration the enormous human, economic, and social costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the lessons learnt from other outbreaks, epidemics and global pandemics, which have highlighted the urgent need for a coordinated action to strengthen health systems and mobilize additional resources for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.

The implementation of country priority health security actions in the NAPHS requires identifying gaps and needs, prioritizing decisions and mobilizing domestic and external financial and technical resources. In this context, the WHO REMAP process facilitates mapping of activities and related health security investments at national and subnational levels, identifies funding, human resources and partnership availability and gaps, and support needed to implement the NAPHS. REMAP can be adapted to the country context and allows updating of the platform based on information on fund availability for IHR capacities.

In 2023, as preparation for the development of the NAPHS 2024-2028 and the REMAP, Sri Lanka underwent several key assessments under International Health Regulations (IHR) monitoring and evaluation framework, namely the International Health Regulations - Performance of Veterinary Services (PVS) national bridging workshop (IHR-PVS NBW), Strategic Toolkit for Assessing Risks (STAR), Performance of Veterinary Services assessment  through WOAH and conducted the repeat Joint External Evaluation of IHR capacities in September last year.  The NAPHS utilized the recommendations from the above national capacity reviews and IHR assessments and translated these findings into concrete activities and prioritized actions in February 2024 which was costed and uploaded to the e NAPHS platform.

The NAPHS and REMAP consultation processes started immediately after the JEE 2023 and aimed at not only reaching consensus regarding priority strategic actions but identifying the funding gaps and providing technical and financial support with partners as the way forward.  Sri Lanka was successful in having the REMAP exercise within 3 months of completing the NAPHS workshop.

The REMAP will complement the e-NAPHS with the financial information to be monitored jointly by the technical experts and finance specialists from the 19 technical areas.

The first day of the REMAP consultation workshop was dedicated towards reaching consensus on the finances available from the government and donors. The activities requiring external technical support were also detailed during Day one. The second and third days focused on broader funds availability and sharing of information between the country, partners and donors, including data on partner and government health security investments and activities, on country needs and gaps, and on opportunities for collaboration to enhance health security which goes beyond the NAPHS activities. The information available on the REMAP dashboard was shared with all participants.  

The financial estimate to implement the priority actions for the Operational NAPHS (2024-2025) was $943,000, with the costing to be updated at the end of 2024. Through the Resource Mapping (REMAP) tool and process, an initial $170,000 was identified as available to fund these actions through direct committed investments.

Further, through the REMAP tool and process nearly $238 million in overall health security-related investment (beyond the NAPHS) was initially identified, funds which may have potential to be leveraged for implementation of NAPHS activities based on discussions with ministries and partners on fund allocation and re-allocation. This includes loans from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, details of which are currently being negotiated.

The information from the resource mapping effort will be used in the joint development of a National Investment Plan for health emergency prevention, preparedness, response and resilience which is expected to be conducted through a consultation process in the next two months.

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