The year 2021 not only marked the 5th meeting of the Collaborative, but it was the first meeting held in the context of COVID-19. The crisis has exposed systemic PFM bottlenecks in health spending. It has forced countries to adapt their PFM systems to provide greater financial flexibility and to tailor accountability systems to respond to this unprecedented crisis. In response to the rapidly developing context, this meeting explored policy options to help countries rebuild and strengthen health financing and PFM systems to make them more responsive to future shocks and able to sustain efforts towards UHC.

The meeting was held virtually from 16 to 19 November 2021 and was open to the public. On 15 November 2021, a series of pre-meeting events took place to mark the 5th meeting of the Montreux Collaborative. It included keynote speeches from renowned members of the Collaborative and a book launch for How to make budgets work for health: a WHO guide for designing, managing and monitoring programme budgets in the health sector.

The Montreux Collaborative meeting was organized by the WHO Department of Health Systems Governance and Financing in collaboration with various development partners, foundations and civil society organizations active in the PFM and health agenda, including the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, International Budget Partnership, Results for Development (R4D), and ThinkWell.