ABSTRACT
Universal health coverage (UHC) is one of the most prioritized policy goals for many developing countries aiming to fast-track their social development. Within the context of the expansion of smart cities across the world, UHC has been touted as one of the key strategies in the smart cities action plan. This chapter aims to examine the policy capacity of two of the largest and most populous developing countries in the world – Indonesia and China – and to analyze the degree to which different domains of policy capacity are critical in achieving UHC through the expansion of social health insurance programs in the two countries. Academic interest in studying policy capacity as an important ingredient in public policy and public administration surfaced in the 1980s. In Wu et al.’s framework, policy capacity encompasses three major competencies/skills (operational, analytical, and political), as well as capabilities/resources at three different levels (individual, organizational, and systemic).
