The January 10th earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, Haiti four years ago lasted for only about 35 seconds, and yet had severe impacts on the country’s already-vulnerable health system. Half of the Haitian population lacked access to basic health services prior to the earthquake, and when available, services were often not high quality. After the earthquake, […]
Ensuring the funds allocated for health services and supplies are actually used for their intended purpose is key to increasing access to life-saving health care in low- and medium-income countries. For nearly two decades, countries and international organizations have used Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) as an important tool to strengthen the governance of health […]
Mobile money provides unique opportunities in the health sector. Mobile money enables funds to be deposited, transferred, and withdrawn electronically through mobile phone accounts. It can be integrated into existing activities—replacing cash flows—to improve efficiency, accountability, and transparency in financial transactions. It also opens up potential to improve scalability of subsidy and incentive schemes and […]
To mobilize more domestic resources for health, countries need to accurately estimate the cost of their national health strategies and health sector plans. In Angola, the HFG project worked closely with the Ministry of Health to complete the costing of Angola’s National Plan for Health Development 2012–2025 or PNDS. As part of Angola’s broader economic […]
An HFG study in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene finds that facility-level resources were freed up as malaria was controlled at two hospitals in Zambia, potentially making those resources available for addressing other diseases and health conditions. The study, “Hospitalizations and Costs Incurred at the Facility Level after Scale-up of Malaria Control: Pre-Post Comparisons from Two Hospitals in […]
The first decade of the new millennium brought high-level advocacy to mobilize more funding for health coupled with unprecedented economic growth in some African countries. Given the region’s healthy economic outlook, will countries have adequate domestic resources for basic health services by 2020? The Health Finance and Governance (HFG) Project analyzed sub-Saharan Africa’s health financing […]
The term mobile money describes financial transactions that are conducted using a mobile phone where value is stored virtually (e-money) in an account associated with a SIM card. Such transactions are compatible with basic phones and do not require Internet access. In many countries, mobile money can be used to pay for health services and […]
As more countries strive to expand access to quality health care, there is a growing need for evidence, research, and knowledge on how best to mobilize and organize health systems’ inputs to achieve universal health coverage. Recently, HFG helped to launch Health Systems Global—the first international society focused solely on promoting health systems research. The […]
Learn more about a country’s health system data by using the updated and re-designed Health Systems Database. This easy-to-use web-based tool compiles and analyzes country health system data from multiple sources, provides visualization options, and generates automated country profiles for quick reference. Data include indicators on health financing, health workforce, leadership and governance, and demographics. […]
In Nigeria, the HFG project is supporting the scale up of smartphones to accurately diagnose and treat tuberculosis (TB). Health workers at more than 500 facilities are using smartphones, as well as androids, as a result of a successful pilot program that integrates these phones into the TB supervision process.
