Bangladesh
Bangladesh was able to overcome the pandemic by creating localized solutions – a necessity given the reality of their population density, informal economy, and inter-generational families. Bangladesh used data to identify clusters for transmission, to target different levels of restrictions and safety precautions depending on new cases, recoveries, and deaths. Download the Bangladesh brief.

China
Officials developed a strategy, dubbed the “Four Early’s”, that sought to minimize infection by identifying, addressing, and conducting contact tracing for infections as soon as possible. This strategy was bolstered by a triaged approach for different regions based on the level of risk identified, which allowed policymakers to direct resources more efficiently to where they were most needed. Officials also recognized the importance of access to high quality health services in curbing the pandemic. The priorities that guided China’s response, timeliness, and access, proved to be largely effective. Download the China brief.

Kenya
Kenya’s response prioritized the efficient process of incoming data, collected, and synthesized at both the national and county level, to ensure timeliness, completeness and accuracy. This approach allowed the Kenyan government to stay abreast of the rapidly evolving situation, monitoring human resources, test kits, drugs, and personal protection equipment levels to more effectively direct resources to where they are needed. Download the Kenya brief.

Nigeria
Nigeria’s systems-based response not only helped reduce the burden of morbidity and mortality in the immediate term but has also helped prepare Nigeria to better handle a resurgence of COVID-19—or any other pandemic of similar magnitude. Care was taken to minimize the impact of the pandemic on critical social, economic and health infrastructure systems and speed-up post-pandemic recovery and rehabilitation. Download the Nigeria brief.

Philippines
The Philippines Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) administers the National Health Insurance Program to provide health insurance coverage and ensure accessible and affordable healthcare services for all Filipinos. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, PhilHealth played a pivotal role in financing healthcare services. This brief documents actions taken by PhilHealth and how it has leveraged existing systems to quickly respond and contribute to the pandemic response. Download the Philippines brief.

Republic of Korea
The Republic of Korea’s preemptive and transparent public health response was instrumental to slowing the spread of the virus and flattening the curve of new infections. In the aftermath of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in 2015, policy changes that were implemented to boost pandemic preparedness and response provided a crucial foundation for the COVID-19 response and became investments that were quickly leveraged, and supported a faster and more effective response. Download the Korea brief.

These country briefs revealed several lessons about how policymakers and practitioners may bolster pandemic preparedness and response in the future, including the following:

Strategic purchasing for COVID-10
Strategic purchasing is a lever to achieve UHC goals, by using limited resources most efficiently to achieve equitable access to quality health services. Policymakers in all six countries coupled incentives for patients to access care with assurances to providers that they will receive the appropriate reimbursement for services, providing a concrete foundation for health system responsiveness.

Leveraging Primary Healthcare and Community Health Systems
PHC and community health are the first point of entry into formal health systems in many countries. Although many investments for the pandemic focused on “surging hospital capacity” with more intensive care beds and ventilators, and “flattening the curve”, the reality is that many cases remain mild or asymptomatic, and PHC and community health systems remain the backbone to support contact tracing, testing and home-based care.

Governance and coordination across sectors and between levels of government
The pandemic response goes beyond the health sector – all six countries have pandemic national coordination units that bring together all sectors such as immigration, security, finance, transport, trade, education, hospitality including – state and non-state actors – to develop multi-sectoral strategies addressing the multiple facets of community life affected by COVID-19 and enforce their implementation.

Evidence-based strategies
Data is a vital component in helping governments, researchers, and policymakers battle the COVID-19 pandemic. With accurate, timely and complete data, governments can make informed decisions to ensure the safety of the population.

The post Primary Health Care Financing and Payment: Lessons and Best Practices from the COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Results for Development.

The COVID-19 Innovation Hub, a joint initiative by U.S. Agency for International Development, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Korea International Cooperation Agency, provides a growing list of more than 700 innovations, including those that are ready to deploy as well as innovations that could be adapted for COVID-19 responses, or inspire new, much-needed solutions.

A smaller list of COVID-19 Recognized Innovations — identified by entities such as UNDP Singapore, Grand Challenges Canada, Y Combinator, and the South Korean Government — highlights innovations that have already been selected for their COVID-19 efforts.

“Our goal with this initiative is to ensure that the innovations being developed or adapted across the globe are discovered quickly by decision-makers and hence utilized for COVID-19 response and recovery efforts,” said Sweta Govani, lead for Global Innovation Exchange at R4D. “In the medium-term, we are also looking to capture stories and lessons learned — and exploring ways to integrate relevant innovations into the larger development community in the long term.”

Innovators, funders and those engaged in COVID-19 response and recovery efforts are invited to visit the COVID-19 Innovation Hub to browse innovations across 12 response areas, and funding opportunities for COVID-19 innovators. The 12 response areas include: prevention; treatment; testing; emergency communications; humanitarian assistance; transport; data; education; enabling community and connection; economic workforce support; vulnerable groups; and policy-related. Innovators are invited to submit COVID-19 innovations for the hub’s consideration.

Since its soft launch last month, the COVID-19 Innovation Hub has featured more than 130 funding opportunities. It is also mapping COVID-19 innovation data and trends, which are updated weekly.

Country governments, implementing agencies, donors or others working on COVID-19 response or recovery are also invited to request a customized list of solutions for their consideration.

For more information, contact the Global Innovation Exchange team at partners@globalinnovationexchange.org.

###

About Global Innovation Exchange
Global Innovation Exchange (GIE) is the largest, searchable development innovation database showcasing 15,000+ innovations and USD1.5 billion+ of funding opportunities with 45,000+ registered users and 50+ partners. GIE’s mission is to help scale the most promising global development innovations by powering data, tools, analysis, and connectivity for various actors in the development innovation ecosystem such as donors, innovators, accelerators, country governments, and thematic experts. GIE is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Australian Department of Foreign Assistance and Trade (Australian Aid), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and managed by Results for Development. www.globalinnovationexchange.org

About Results for Development
Results for Development (R4D) is a leading non-profit global development partner. We collaborate with change agents around the world — government officials, civil society leaders and social innovators — to create strong systems that support healthy, educated people. We help our partners move from knowing their goal to knowing how to reach it. We combine global expertise in health, education and nutrition with analytic rigor, practical support for decision-making and implementation and access to peer problem-solving networks. Together with our partners, we build self-sustaining systems that serve everyone and deliver lasting results. Then we share what we learn so others can achieve results for development, too. For more information, visit our website at: www.r4d.org

The post Global Innovation Exchange launches COVID-19 Innovation Hub appeared first on Results for Development.

As a senior program officer with R4D’s market shaping practice, she leads the global components of the practice’s flagship project to increase access to childhood pneumonia treatments in high burden countries. Ms. Ahn oversees analyses in several countries in Africa and Asia to identify market barriers and targeted areas for support to scale access to amoxicillin dispersible tablets (amox DT) – the WHO-recommended treatment of childhood pneumonia. Her work involves extensive engagement with reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health advocates, policymakers and donors to prioritize  childhood pneumonia and support resource mobilization efforts for child health commodities; additionally, she works closely with global and local suppliers of amox DT to increase transparency of markets in high burden countries, and to share the business-case for country-level drug registration, to ensure a readily accessible supply of the life treatment.

Before working at R4D, Ms. Ahn spent several years in Zambia supporting the development of standard operating procedures for the national implementation of Option B+, an antiretroviral treatment for HIV-positive pregnant or breastfeeding mothers, and subsequently managing an evaluation of Zambia’s national immunization program for Gavi. She also worked at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, where she developed and applied analytical methods to estimate the global burden of disease, specifically diarrheal diseases in children under five, for the Global Burden of Diseases Study. Ms. Ahn was a Fulbright Fellow in South Korea where she worked on the country’s first incidence and prevalence study of autism.

Ms. Ahn holds an MPH in health metrics and evaluation from the University of Washington and a BA in international political economy from the University of California, Berkeley. She speaks English, Spanish and Korean.

The post Stephanie Ahn appeared first on Results for Development.

Ms. Synowiec works on R4D’s growing portfolio of program monitoring, learning, and evaluation initiatives to support internal learning opportunities for our health and education programs – called our Learning Lab approach. R4D has applied this approach in partnership with a range of partners including Mobile Creches, the UBS Optimus Foundation, Worldreader, and Pearson. Ms. Synowiec and team are now partnering with USAID’s Global Development Lab to pilot Rapid Feedback Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) with up to 15 pilots to address the need for systematic approaches to learning and adaptation.

Prior to joining R4D in 2010, Ms. Synowiec was a Senior Research Analyst at the Advisory Board Company, where she designed and executed best practice research studies analyzing key economic and political trends affecting U.S. hospitals. She has field experience in Latin America, conducting research on internal displacement in Nicaragua and Colombia and leading international delegations to Mexico and Venezuela. As a Fulbright Grantee, she also lived in South Korea in the Jeollanam-do province. Ms. Synowiec holds a Bachelors of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies (Magna Cum Laude) specializing in international human rights from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

The post Christina Synowiec appeared first on Results for Development.

Mr. Worthington is a finance manager at Results for Development (R4D), supporting the HSS Accelerator project. He oversees financial management which includes multiple activities and programs across countries in Africa and Asia. He is responsible for overall financial oversight, which includes budgeting, expense tracking, projections, revenue and financial planning; works, as part of the HSS Accelerator management team, on mechanism level financial management and strategy; and plays a key role in working with international and local partners.

Prior to R4D, Mr. Worthington was a finance manager at FHI 360, where he was responsible for the financial management of a portfolio of USAID-funded civil society and peacebuilding projects across Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. In this role, he oversaw the financial management of large, complex projects with multiple international and local partners. He provided support to local grantees, as well as provided capacity building technical assistance, including developing a financial management training adapted to USAID rules and regulations.

Prior to FHI 360, he worked at Abt Associates, where he was responsible for project management, finance, operations, contracts and HR for USAID and DIFID-funded projects. He has has also worked in wealth management at State Street Corporation and as an English as a second language teacher in Seoul, South Korea.

Mr. Worthington holds a masters degree in public administration from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University and a bachelor of arts in international affairs from the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. He is a native speaker of English and is fluent in French.

The post Jeremy Worthington appeared first on Results for Development.