Facilitating Ministry of Health's stewardship role The IDF will help to build MOH's capacity to define and prioritize core public health functions, and to pursue these in a stewardship mode. The collection of case studies from different parts of the country will aid this task. The IDF will provide an opportunity for the government to assess the success of existing policy instruments and to review international best practice. It will also enable the government to analyze the degree to which the right skills and attitudes in place at all levels to respond to existing and future public health challenges.  By supporting the government to assess skills gaps and to develop recommendations and new policy instruments in three important areas ( health insurance, preventive health and health workforce), the IDF should help to build MOH#s capacity as a health sector # steward#. There are three components: Component 1: Finding a sustainable path to Universal Health Insurance (UHI) One of MOH's CPHFs is to ensure equity through sustainable health financing mechanisms.  As indicated, the government has set out targets to universalize health insurance by 2010. This is a highly ambitious task which requires the exploration of existing roles and policies; analysis of skills gaps and development of a workable action plan and new policy instruments. This component aims to build capacity of MOH, specifically the Department of Health Insurance. It will be necessary for MOH to work with other relevant departments e.g. MOLISA in the analysis. Technical assistance will be provided to help the government assess two key policy instruments and to develop and disseminate recommendations. The assessments will collect case studies from around the country and review best practice from overseas. Recommendations for addressing skills gaps and new policy instruments will be developed and discussed through workshops. The end result should be that MOH is better placed to achieve UHI. Component 2: Goals and priorities in preventive health  and investigating other core public health functions Another of the government's CPHFs is to address preventive health challenges in communicable and non-communicable diseases. Funding and TA will help build capacity in the Department of Preventive Health to undertake this CPHF. This component will provide assistance to the MOH to assess the country's preventive health challenges and develop new policy instruments, through analysis of existing policies, development of case studies and experiences from other countries. MOH should undertake the analysis in conjunction with relevant departments such as Food Safety, Road Safety and the Environment. The assessment will draw on lessons learned in dealing with SARS and AI i.e. which policy instruments were effective, and which were not. It will also analyze the challenges of NCDs such as environmental factors, road safety, food safety etc. The assessment will look at existing policies; the role of the central, provincial and district levels of government; the legal framework; organizational structures and functions; co-ordination between relevant ministries; financial and infrastructure conditions; governance and stewardship. Recommendations, including new policy instruments will be discussed and disseminated through workshops. This component will also provide funding and TA to build the government's capacity to assess and develop other CPHFs such as: the impact on health of international trade policy/ WTO; intellectual property rights and health or the role of the private sector in health financing. Component 3: The Health Workforce The third component addresses another CPHF - the maintenance of an effective health workforce. TA and funding aims to build capacity in the departments of Training and Personnel to enable them to develop effective health workforce policies, and to move from a centralized 'command and control' approach to that of a sector 'steward'. Although provinces have more autonomy than before, there is still much to be done to ensure that the health workforce is adequately skilled and effectively dispersed around the country. MOH should undertake analysis with MOET where relevant. The IDF will support the government to undertake an assessment that looks at: HRM policies and procedures; case studies of past HRM successes and challenges in dealing with emerging diseases such as AI and SARS; HRM for NCDs eg. food safety, road safety, environmental hazards etc. ; analysis of current workforce policies and practices including incentives and motivation, financing and budgeting and training; analysis of current workforce picture (using standard categories e.g. educational background, age, job category and level of specialization, location); identification of changes and shortfalls over last 10 years; summary of capacity constraints; analysis of job satisfaction of medical practitioners; relevance of workforce abilities to needs of users and levels of health workers' knowledge of proposed reforms and implications. The assessment will examine key policy instruments and skills gaps and will set out recommendations and new policy instruments.  Recommendations will be discussed in workshops. To help the MOH by building its stewardship capcities pertaining to Core Public Health Functions, including: health insurance, preventive health, and health workforce.