For more than 20 years, USAID has led the use of National Health Accounts (NHA) to track the sources and uses of all health spending – donor, government, and private sector – in more than 70 low- and middle-income countries.

“NHA provides extremely powerful information that should be used increasingly for policymaking … The power of the [NHA] evidence is that they trigger discussions about how to allocate resources,” said A.K. Nandakumar, Chief Health Economist, USAID, at a brown bag lunch held April 23rd at the Ronald Reagan Building.

In addition to Dr. Nandakumar, Scott Stewart, Health Economist and AOR for the HFG Project, and Tesfaye Dereje, Health Economist, HFG, presented highlights of the new, improved NHA, including the System of Health Accounts (SHA) 2011 and its more detailed disease break-down. A lively discussion ensued, with many questions from the audience.

USAID with the World Health Organization is helping low- and middle-income countries take advantage of the new NHA to improve the equity, efficiency, and effectiveness of each health dollar spent, and also to track country and donor commitments to FP2020, AIDS Free Generation, and other global health initiatives.

Updates to National Health Accounts: SHA 2011