Engaging Civil Society in the Ministry of Health's State Social Contracting Program in the Kyrgyz Republic

On May 3, 2018, public hearings for the State Social Contracting (SSC) program were held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, at which the draft program was presented to stakeholders including civil society organizations, international development partners, the Ministry of Health (MOH), and the Ministry of Labor and Social Development. Financial support for the meeting was provided by USAID in the Kyrgyz Republic through the Advancing Partners & Communities (APC) and Health Policy Plus (HP+) projects.

The SSC is an economic and legal mechanism for implementing state plans and programs aimed to meet citizen’s social needs. The purpose of SSC is to solve social problems by funding socially significant services and public benefit projects. Civil Society can add value to the implementation of the SSC mechanism by bringing innovative, cost-efficient solutions adapted to the needs of their beneficiaries.

The MOH has established a technical working group (TWG) to promote SSC and develop polices and strategies to implement it. During the one-day meeting, the TWG members provided an overview of the regulatory framework for execution of the SSC. In addition to the program, draft standards of services were presented to collect participant feedback and suggestions to finalize these strategic documents.

International examples of social contracting were presented to showcase best practices and achievements. These examples were based on study tours in Croatia and Ukraine undertaken by joint delegations of civil society organizations, the MOH, and other Kyrgyz government officials with financial support from USAID (for Croatia) and Open Society Foundation (for Ukraine).

The organizers invited media representatives to participate in the public hearing so that the public could obtain objective and timely information about the SSC program and standards of services in its framework.