July 5, 2025 EHIS The national Council for Community-Based health care held its annual discussion forum on previously determined decisions, implementation in 2017 and further focus areas. In opening the discussion, EFEDRI Deputy Prime Minister Temesgen Tiruneh said that Community-based health insurance is one of the many strategies and reforms being implemented in the health sector to benefit our people, which will make it possible to achieve universal health coverage by 2030 by providing access to quality health services. The Deputy Prime Minister said that the program will benefit our people at the highest level, is closely linked to the realization of the prosperity journey we have begun, and the top management has been assigned to lead the implementation with ownership as a key agenda. Minister of the Ministry of health of FDRE, Dr. Mekdes Daba, announced that more than 4500 health facilities have been constructed and put into operation to equitably provide nationwide health coverage to all citizens by 2030, with health service coverage reaching over 95%. Dr. Mekdes said that in the 2017 budget year, 1195 districts, including 13.67 million households, provided health coverage to 63 million beneficiaries to implement the nationwide health insurance in several places; Members of the national Council of Community-Based health care, senior leaders, organizations at all levels from the provinces to the districts, expressed their gratitude for the outstanding role and commitment of the political leadership and on behalf of our Community who benefited from this. The director general of the Ethiopian Health Insurance Service, Mr. Tesfaye Worku, while presenting the performance report of the 2017 fiscal year, explained that the beneficiaries of the Community-Based Health Insurance coverage have been able to support health insurance coverage by enrolling more than 63 million citizens’ beneficiaries. He also gave a detailed presentation on some of the decisions and directions set by the national Assembly; the main activities carried out and the results achieved; the strengths and weaknesses identified, as well as the areas of focus in 2018. The chief lead executive officer of Ethiopian Health Insurance Service for quality and assurance of health service providers, Mrs Felegush Birhane, explained that there are more than 530 benefit package to enforce accountability by clearly informing the benefit frameworks provided to health insurance beneficiaries by health institutions that fall under the Community universal health insurance benefit framework. The discussion was attended by the Presidents and Vice Presidents of the Region, Members of the standing Committee of the House of Parliament representatives, Ministers, State Ministers, The Deputy Mayor of municipal administrations, Heads of Nominated institutions, stakeholders and invited bodies.