Achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a main goal of the National Health Strategy, and is based on the principles of justice, equity, poverty reduction and the rational use of resources. It requires providing quality health care for all, to satisfy each one’s needs while alleviating the financial burden, on households, especially the poor.
 
Since the development of the national primary healthcare network, scaling up the primary healthcare (PHC) system and reducing out of pocket payments have been a major strategic direction for the ministry of public health. However, the Syrian crisis has placed a large and additional burden on the healthcare system in Lebanon with the primary care system at the frontline.
 
Realizing the urgent need to address the emerging health crisis especially in underserved host communities, the MoPH developed an emergency program aimed at expandingthe PHC package while targeting to the poor and near poor population in Lebanon. Accordingly, the ministry of public health,through a grant from the Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) for Lebanon, has embarked on a project with the World Bank to support the delivery of a package of primary healthcare services (Essential Healthcare Package EHCP) to the impoverished Lebanese. This project was designed by the ministry of public health and experts from the American University of Beirut, WHO and UNICEF.