The Challenge
An increasing number of low- and middle-income countries are attempting to strengthen their health systems and expand access to affordable and high-quality health care. But many face barriers, including inefficient use of resources, weak governance structures, and poor management systems within the health sector. Without adequate investments to develop the foundation for effective and sustainable health financing systems, countries will find it challenging to build the robust health systems needed to ultimately achieve improved health outcomes.
The Opportunity
Given these challenges, there is an opportunity to collaborate with Ministries of Health and other health sector actors at all levels to strengthen country financing and governance systems for health. This includes building country capacity to:
- Improve financing for health — for example, by mobilizing domestic resources or improving efficiency of spending — to reduce financial barriers and expand access to care;
- Strengthen governance capacity of partner country health systems;
- Improve country-owned systems in public health management and operations; and
- Advance techniques to measure progress in health systems performance through increased use of evidence-based tools and innovative measurement techniques
The Health Finance and Governance (HFG) project is a five-year, USAID-funded project aimed at increasing the use of priority health services — including those concerning tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, maternal and child health, and reproductive health — by strengthening health finance and governance systems in low- and middle-income countries.
Our Work
Through the Health Finance and Governance project, R4D is leading work to improve health finance and governance systems in Cambodia, Ghana, Haiti, South Africa, Tanzania and at a global level. R4D’s work spans a wide range activities, from helping to inform the design of high-level strategic plans to supporting the implementation of improved provider payment mechanisms at the local level. R4D also supports the generation and dissemination of knowledge on relevant topics such as mobile money and domestic resource mobilization strategies. Details on specific HFG projects can be found below:
