Morocco Identifies Success Stories of the Catalan Health System with Views to Reform its Own Health System

With the aim of reforming its national health system towards a more cross-sectional model, a high-level delegation from Morocco visited Catalonia from the 13th to the 17th of January. Specifically, they were interested in hearing about successful experiences of the Catalan health system and learning how to adapt the processes of health integration in all public policies (SdTP) to the context of Morocco.

The delegation was composed of four senior officials of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Reform of the Moroccan Administration, headed by the Secretary General of the Department of General Affairs and Governance, M. Aziz Ajbilou, and four representatives of the Ministry of Health, headed by its secretary general, Dr. Abdelilah Boutaleb. Representatives from the Moroccan delegations of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which support the on-going reform processes, completed the group.

Throughout a week, with the support of the Public Health Secretary and the Public Health Agency of the Catalan Health Department, they were introduced to several community health programs considered as pioneers in Catalonia, as well as the Interdepartmental and Cross-Sectional Plan of Public Health (PINSAP). This is an initiative that seeks to promote health from all areas of government action and society, that is to say “health in all policies”, in line with the recommendations by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The Moroccan delegation was very interested in the work that ISGlobal has done so far, and in the new lines of work that it has undertaken in Morocco over recent years in terms of research, education and translation, as well as the institution’s ability to generate knowledge and cross-cutting health policies in several areas of public management, such as, for example, urban mobility.

According to Antoni Plasència, general director of ISGlobal, “this visit underlines the shared will to enhance opportunities for effective collaboration, through new projects that allow applying the best scientific knowledge to help transform health systems, either in governance or in the implementation of cross-sectional public policies, an approach consistent with that required to implement the health SDGs.”

In this context, during the second week of February, Josep Lluís de Peray, teaching collaborator at ISGlobal, will give a workshop entitled “Support for the Health Integration in All Policies, and the Approach and Tools for Health Impact Assessment”.

Twenty Years Collaborating with Morocco

ISGlobal and preceding institutions have been collaborating with several health institutions in Morocco for nearly two decades, with the Ministry of Health as a priority partner, developing several research, education and technical advice projects to improve the health of the most vulnerable populations.

One of the recent initiatives worth mentioning is the Mediterranean Health Observatory, promoted by ISGlobal and the Ministry of Health of Morocco with support from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID). This Observatory was created with the aim of identifying and working on global health issues of special interest to the Mediterranean region and in line with the SDGs, such as environmental health and migrants health, among others. Also noteworthy is the current collaboration in the new master's programme in global health, with the National School of Public Health (ENSP) of Morocco.