 The Government of St Lucia has adopted a phased approach to the introduction of universal health coverage UHC. Prior to the implementation of UHC, there is a need to develop a financing policy which is a core function of this health system reform. The financing policy will help chart the way forward for equitable access to healthcare for St Lucia while ensuring financial protection. Under UHC there are very important health pillars that we have to address to be able to attain UHC, pillars such as health management information system, pillars such as service delivery, governance and finance, and very important pillars that you must address to be able to attain UHC. So we will be having focus group discussions with smaller groups that will be coming in simultaneously during the week, chiefly on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, to be able to have that discussion which will feed into our UHC White Paper or Roadmap. The aim of the week long workshop was for specialists representing the World Bank to support the Government of St Lucia to develop a health financing policy and strategy to support the drafting of the UHC White Paper and to provide guidance for the launch and implementation of the performance-based financing scheme. But what I would say that the importance of the World Bank is that you have a project which is called the Health System Strengthening Project, and the project is supporting the Government to accelerate UHC. Beyond the World Bank we also have a Korea World Bank Partnership Facility and this donation from the Korean Government also proposes you to further achieve UHC. And actually the workshop that we do together is part of that KWP effort and the Health System Strengthening Project is providing a platform for you to implement it. So it's not only talking and coming up with diagnostics but also implementing which is the most important. Health Minister Hon. Moses Jabattis says their analysis allowed the Government of St Lucia to identify the need for healthcare reform. But now that we've decided as a government that we are going to implement universal healthcare we needed to bring together some professionals to look at what we have already and also to discuss different modes of financing and how our agencies in St Lucia, the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs and other public sector agencies can work together to come up with ideas for a financing model. Certainly we will also consult with individuals, doctors, other professionals, St Lucia's who have worked on universal healthcare before. So this workshop today which is being supported by the Korean Partnership and also the World Bank Group will help us to come a little closer to our goal of understanding the ramifications of healthcare financing for St Lucia. Some areas of discussion and analysis included an overview and situational analysis of health financing issues in St Lucia. This required collaboration between intergovernmental agencies and ministries. Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs, Miss Jenny Daniel spoke to the critical need for collaboration and knowledge exchange. In addition to this we are looking forward to overall reforming of our health sector to ensure that our population has adequate access to very much high quality healthcare services. Of course all of this has a cost and health financing speaks to the ability of the country to finance health services for everyone, for the benefit of everyone. This workshop here today brings to the head table the discussions about health financing that are very vital to the implementation of UTC. The week-long workshop also comprised of smaller focus groups. These groups of key stakeholders concentrated on the inclusion of tools garnered in the health financing workshop to be weaved into the universal health coverage White Paper. For the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs, I am Jade Brown.