Resource Type: Report
Authors: Dorothy Mutizwa-Mangiza
Published: 11/1/1998

Resource Description:

During the past decade the economic situation in Zimbabwe has deteriorated significantly. Public sector health care workers have gone from being high status and relatively well paid members of the community to workers struggling to get a living wage from their jobs. This paper describes the specific policy measures that the Zimbabwean government has recently implemented to try to improve health sector performance, and promote higher levels of motivation amongst public sector health care workers. The overall reform package is to include financial reforms (user fees and social insurance), strengthening of health management, liberalization and regulation of the private health sector, decentralization, and contracting out. Unfortunately, the process of reform implementation in Zimbabwe and the government’s poor communication with workers, combined with a conflict between local cultures and the measures being implemented, has undermined the potentially positive effect of reforms on health worker motivation.