This paper examined the influence of national, sub-national and global factors on priority setting for noncommunicable disease control in Uganda. A mixed methods design that used the Kapiriri Martin framework for evaluating priority setting in low income countries and the evaluation period was 2005–2015. Priority setting for noncommunicable diseases was not entirely fair nor successful. While there were explicit processes that incorporated relevant criteria, evidence and wide stakeholder involvement, these criteria were not used systematically or consistently in the contemplation of noncommunicable diseases. There were insufficient resources for noncommunicable diseases, despite being a priority area. There were weaknesses in the priority setting institutions, and insufficient mechanisms to ensure accountability for decision-making. Priority setting was influenced by the priorities of major stakeholders, such as development assistance partners, which were not always aligned with national priorities. There were major delays in the implementation of noncommunicable disease-related priorities and in many cases, a failure to implement. This evaluation revealed the challenges that low income countries are grappling with in prioritizing noncommunicable diseases in the context of a double disease burden with limited resources. The authors propose that strengthening local capacity for priority setting would help to support the development of sustainable and implementable noncommunicable disease-related priorities and that global support to low income countries for noncommunicable diseases must catch up to align with NCDs as a global health priority.
Resource allocation and health financing
This study describes the impact of cash grants and parenting quality on 854 children aged 5–15 in South African and Malawi on educational outcomes including enrollment, regular attendance, correct class for age and school progress, controlling for cognitive performance. Consecutive attenders at randomly selected Community based organisations were recruited. The effects of cash plus good parenting, HIV status and gender were examined. Overall 73.1% received a grant – significantly less children with HIV (57.3% vs 75.6%). Controlling for cognitive ability, grant receipt was associated with higher odds of being in the correct grade, higher odds of attending school regularly, and much higher odds of having missed less than a week of school recently. Grant receipt was not associated with how well children performed in school compared to their classmates or with school enrollment. Grant receipt was associated with a significant reduction in educational risk for girls.
The South African government introduced a voluntary health insurance scheme (GEMS) for government employees in 2005 with the aim of improving access to care and extending health coverage. In this paper, the authors ask whether the scheme has assisted in efforts to move towards UHC. Using a cross-sectional survey across four of South Africa’s nine provinces, the authors interviewed 1329 government employees, from the education and health sectors. Data were collected on socio-demographics, insurance coverage, health status and utilisation of health care. A quarter of respondents remained uninsured, even higher among 20–29 year olds (46%) and lower-skilled employees (58%). The scheme generated inequities in utilisation among its members due to its differential benefit packages, with, for example, those with the most benefits having one outpatient visits/month compared to 0.6/month with lowest benefits. By introducing the scheme, the government chose to prioritise access to private sector care for government employees, over improving the availability and quality of public sector services available to all. Government has recently regained its focus on achieving UHC through the public system, but is unlikely to discontinue GEMS, which is now firmly established. The authors observe that the inequities generated by the scheme have been institutionalised within the country’s financing system, and warrant attention. Raising scheme uptake and reducing differentials between benefit packages will ameliorate inequities within civil servants, but not across the country as a whole.
The authors examined pay for performance (P4P) effects on service utilisation across different population subgroups in Tanzania. About 3000 households were surveyed of women who delivered in the last 12 months prior to the interview from seven intervention and four comparison districts in January 2012 and a similar number of households in 13 months later. The household data were used to generate the population subgroups and to measure the incentivised service utilisation outcomes, with a focus on the institutional delivery rate and the uptake of antimalarials for pregnant women. P4P led to a significant increase in the rate of institutional deliveries among women in poorest and in middle wealth status households, but not among women in least poor households. The differential effect was marginally greater among women in the middle wealth households compared to women in the least poor households. The effect of P4P on institutional deliveries was also significantly higher among women in rural districts compared to women in urban districts, and among uninsured women than insured women. The effect of P4P on the uptake of antimalarials was equally distributed across population subgroups. The authors suggest that P4P can enhance equitable healthcare access and use especially when the demand-side barriers to access care such as user fees associated with drug purchase due to stock-outs have been reduced.
In order to increase access to and use of maternal health services, in June 2013, the President of Kenya announced a policy offering free care for all women giving birth in a public health facility. This policy brief highlights both the positive and negative effects of the Free Maternity Services Policy based on research conducted in health facilities in three counties in Kenya. It outlines the challenges to implementing the policy and suggests how the Ministry of Health can make improvements going forward. The policy appears to have increased use of maternity services and provided additional funding for some facilities; however, its hurried implementation led to confusion about what services were included, and some clients were still required to pay for services. The policy was not accompanied by any supportive interventions to increase the capacity of health facilities. As a result, increased demand for services put a strain on health workers and compromised quality of care. The implementation of the Free Maternity Services Policy highlights the need for whole system change as opposed to isolated policy interventions. Going forward, the authors argue that the national Ministry of Health must provide clear guidelines as to what the policy covers and communicate these effectively to health facilities and providers. The county governments should strengthen the capacity of health facilities to cope with additional demand.
Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies could remake global health financing and usher in an era global health equity and universal health coverage. The authors outline and provide examples for at least four important ways in which this potential disruption of traditional global health funding mechanisms could occur: universal access to financing through direct transactions without third parties; novel new multilateral financing mechanisms; increased security and reduced fraud and corruption; and the opportunity for open markets for healthcare data that drive discovery and innovation. The authors present these issues as a paramount to the delivery of healthcare worldwide and relevant for payers and providers of healthcare at state, national and global levels; for government and non-governmental organisations; and for global aid and intergovernmental organisations.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, recognising the need for reliable health workforce information, the government has worked to implement iHRIS, an open source human resources information system that facilitates health workforce management. In Kasaï Central and Kasaï Provinces, health workers brought relevant documentation to data collection points, where trained teams interviewed them and entered contact information, identification, photo, current job, and employment and education history into iHRIS on laptops. After uploading the data, the Ministry of Public Health used the database of over 11 500 verified health worker records to analyse health worker characteristics, density, compensation, and payroll. Both provinces had less than one physician per 10 000 population and a higher urban versus rural health worker density. Most iHRIS-registered health workers (57% in Kasaï Central and 73% in Kasaï) reported receiving no regular government pay of any kind (salaries or risk allowances). Payroll analysis showed that 27% of the health workers listed as salary recipients in the electronic payroll system were ghost workers, as were 42% of risk allowance recipients. As a result, the Ministries of Public Health, Public Service, and Finance reallocated funds away from ghost workers to cover salaries and risk allowances for thousands of health workers who were previously under- or uncompensated due to lack of funds. The reallocation prioritised previously under- or uncompensated mid-level health workers, with 49% of those receiving salaries and 68% of those receiving risk allowances representing cadres such as nurses, laboratory technicians, and midwifery cadres. The authors observe that assembling accurate health worker records can help governments understand health workforce characteristics and use data to direct scarce domestic resources to where they are most needed.
Direct payments by patients at the point of health care delivery, commonly known as user fees, lead to low utilisation of or exclusion from available health care services and impoverish households. Vulnerable groups are particularly affected. Over the past decade, many countries transitioned away from their user fee policies in favour of health care free at point of care for all or for specific population groups, such as pregnant women, children, and people with certain illnesses. Médecins Sans Frontières teams report in this paper witnessing evidence which starkly contrasts the discourse around UHC. Instead of improved access to care, they report a trend towards the reintroduction of user fees and other direct payments within national health financing strategies. They also report a lack of commitment and support to implement free care policies that secure access and sufficient coverage for the population’s health needs. The authors argue that if the global health community is serious about making UHC a reality and ‘leave no one behind’, removal of user fees for essential medicines and services must be tackled as a priority.
The Davis Tax Committee was established in 2013 by the Minister of Finance to inquire into the role of the tax system in promoting inclusive economic growth, employment creation, development and fiscal sustainability. This report concentrates on identifying long term financing principles – the specific operationalisation which will be informed by more detailed implementation and costing plans in order to manage the transition from the status quo to the financing regime envisaged in the National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Africa. This report examines the definition, rationale and design of the proposed NHI. It explores international experience in financing universal health coverage, with a focus on middle income developing countries and existing sources of health financing in South Africa are analysed. Cost estimates and potential macroeconomic impacts are discussed and the report concludes with an evaluation of options for NHI financing. The authors identify a number of factors in the design of NHI, as well as its implementation, all of which have an impact on its financing trajectory. These include parameters on risk pooling, on health care purchasing and on provision. Risk pooling decisions include whether there would be a single or multiple purchaser, the level of consolidation of risk pools and their coverage and composition as well as the nature of the resources allocation formula (evidence and needs based, risk equalisation etc.). The structure of purchasing encompasses, inter alia, the scope and pricing of the benefit package (which had not yet been defined in the White Paper), contractual arrangements with health care providers such as GPs and hospitals, quality management systems, payment and information systems.
This synthesis paper brings together the research findings from four papers prepared by the Uganda team in the UNRISD Politics of Domestic Resource Mobilisation for Social Development project. It addresses three broad themes: bargaining and contestation, key relations, and institution building with regard to mobilising resources for social development. The authors analyse how political economy factors affect revenue raising and social spending priorities in Uganda. It applies a political settlement theory, exploring revenue bargaining or political negotiations that shape revenue mobilisation, revenue composition and policy priorities guiding revenue allocation. The authors focus on three instances of revenue bargains: legislative tax reform, institutional performance of the revenue agencies, and policy making. The first two instances relate to the actual mobilisation of resources, whereas the third example focuses on bargains over spending priorities within a given revenue base. The findings indicate that in Uganda, a low-income country with competing political factions, there are specific challenges to mobilising resources for social development. The need to maintain political power is argued by the authors to have led to reduced tax intakes as taxes levied on rural voters are abolished and tax exemptions introduced for powerful supporters. On the spending side, social development concerns are argued to compete with other public policy areas as well as the pressure to allocate resources for political purposes.