Anrudh Jain’s blog reaction to a recent eclampsia incident leading to a young mother’s death in India reinforces his earlier concerns on the diminishing link between increased institutional deliveries and reduced maternal mortality ratio (MMR). Quoting statistical analysis of data published in The Lancet that failed to establish any effect of India’s conditional cash transfer program—the [...]

The Population Reference Bureau will on Tuesday, January 18th, at 1.00pm (EST) host an online discussion on Health Voucher Programs Impact & Efficiency.

Vouchers have been cited as a promising alternative to the existing health finance mechanisms meant to achieve a variety of goals in health systems including reproductive health services. Little is however still known on [...]

The World Bank’s Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) will on Tuesday, January 25th officially launch a new interactive online database tool, “OBA Data”, that showcases Output-Based Aid (OBA) projects around the world, putting access to comprehensive and in-depth data on the universe of OBA projects at the fingertips of development practitioners worldwide.

The online interactive tool’s [...]

The USAID Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) in partnership with the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation is organizing an e-Conference on March 29-30, 2011 under the theme ‘expanding access to financial services for health care providers’.

Call for abstracts is now open through to January 21st together with [...]

WHO-World Health Report urges efficient utilization of prepaid & pooled resources in a bid to achieve universal coverage and suggests vouchers as an alternative strategy to improve this coverage, but as of yet, little is known about voucher program impact, as noted in a Council literature review published in October. More systematic reviews [...]

The First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research held in Montreux, Switzerland from November 16 -19 was organized by the World Health Organization, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, the Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP), and [...]

Options is a leading provider of management and technical assistance services in international health working in Asia, Africa, East Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Its mission is to improve the health and quality of life of poor and marginalized people focusing  on maternal, reproductive and sexual health including HIV & AIDS and [...]

The Population Council is implementing a multi-country research project in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Cambodia and Bangladesh to strengthen monitoring and evaluation in voucher and accreditation (V&A) programs. V&A approaches are healthcare finance mechanisms that link facility utilization with service reimbursements and have not yet been systematically monitored or evaluated. There is a need for [...]

The World Bank’s Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) Program will on Tuesday September 14th, present a glossary publication on various acronyms associated with Results-Based Financing (RBF) as a general term used to describe different health finance incentives and payment arrangements.  Although often labeled differently, Results-Based Financing (RBF) presents the same concept of  increasing the quantity [...]

You can now download the third issue of the RH Vouchers Quarterly Newsletter or read it here. This issue highlights key discussions from the second technical advisory committee meeting held on June 11, in Washington DC. You will also find an update on the five country programs and a summary profile of the Bangladesh voucher scheme. [...]