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 and quality of health services using an output  instead of input based approach. It combines the use of incentives for health-related behaviors with a strong focus on results, and can support efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Author Philip Musgrove and other panelists from the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and the Global Partnership on Output Based Aid will explain the concepts and significant distinctions among the various types of RBF programs.

The two-hour session kicks off at noon at the World Bank 1 Building in Washington DC.

Reservations are required.

More about RBF

Read the Glossary

More about HNP

You can now download the third issue of the RH Vouchers Quarterly Newsletter 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. In the publications section we feature Shakil and Khan’s review of the lessons learnt from the Bangladesh program and the latest annual compendium profiling 40 social franchising programs, about half of which use vouchers to stimulate demand and target subsidies.

• we profile the Kenya OBA program and share updates on the evaluation’s population and health facility baselines
• we highlight Anrudh Jain’s recent commentary on two key indicators to monitor in RH programs that incentivize facility based delivery, and
• we summarize several new publications with management lessons for healthcare finance projects.

DOWNLOAD PDF HERE

The USAID Strengthening Health Outcomes through Private Sector (SHOPS) and mHealth Alliance is currently showcasing a Pre-Conference Hall of their inaugural annual e-Conference that seeks to advance private sector innovations in the sustainable provision and use of quality family planning/ reproductive health products and services.

Registration is still open for the May 5 event. Highlights will include panel presentations from Grameen Foundation, Pesinet, Catholic Relief Services, Millennium Villages Project, and other mHealth implementers throughout Africa and Asia. Be sure to check out the chat sessions and the resource center.

Register to learn more about how you can collect and share more timely and accurate field health information, reach your target beneficiaries with personalized text messages and help health workers improve treatment quality at the point of care. Participation requires only internet connectivity.

More information about the eConference

You can also visit the Global Health Ideas blog for a text version of the original announcement

There will be those who insist on giving shoes (including such high profile experts as Jessica Simpson and Kim Kardashian). Still others offer used yoga mats, or baby formula. Ports and roads clogged up with shoes and yoga mats cannot deliver essential medicines, food and supplies…

But now there is a small but growing chorus of voices dedicated to equipping individual donors with information on how to help effectively in a crisis. This movement has the power to harness the generosity of individuals, change ingrained giving practices, and create positive pressure on NGOs and aid agencies to demonstrate the impact of their work.

That’s why the award for Best in Aid goes to…the Smart Giving movement, nominated by Saundra Schimmelpfennig of the blog Good Intentions are Not Enough.

– Inspiring a New Generation Developing Global Citizens of the 21st Century
– Empowering Women and Girls Making equality a reality
– Enabling the Essential Education What everyone should learn to succeed in the 21st century
– Building Stronger Partnerships Explore new ways to promote partnerships between societies, citizens, community organizations, and businesses as a means of creating sustainable solutions to shared development priorities
– Exercising Political and Civil Rights Understanding rights, increasing citizens participation and expanding accountability
– Promoting Global Health Connecting and empowering individuals and communities to take charge over their own health and well-being
– Advancing Entrepreneurship, Trade & Economic Opportunity Find new ways to advance entrepreneurship, job creation, and economic opportunity
– Fostering Science, Technology & Innovation Discover new ways to support societies and build capacity by leveraging science and technology
– Supporting a Sustainable Planet Exchange lessons learned on how to address global climate change
– Pursuing Grand Challenges Identifying the “grand challenges” of the next decade

Check it out and register at GlobalPulse2010.gov

Paul Collier in Foreign Policy (“How to Fix Haiti’s Fixers“) had a rather short piece arguing for a greater stewardship role of the Haitian government and increased transparency of NGOs’ service delivery outputs.

Although it’s true that the Haitian state cannot run mass service provision, the government could realistically allocate the funding for it. So, instead of donating to NGOs, donor money would all be streamed into a common pool. A new government agency would be charged with overseeing the common pool, setting clear criteria for NGO performance, monitoring the NGOs, and giving out money from that pool based on the set standards and community needs.

Lest we think it a simple matter of empowering state stewardship, the Lancet’s Jan 30th report (“Financing of health systems to achieve the health Millennium Development Goals in low-income countries“) from the High Level Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems adds a strong dose of political reality on the challenges to reforming healthcare finance. Many of these points can be generalized to other public services.

This report summarises the key challenges faced by the Taskforce and its Working Groups. Working Group 1 examined the constraints to scaling up and costs. Challenges included: difficulty in generalisation because of scarce and context-specific health-systems knowledge; no consensus for optimum service-delivery approaches, leading to wide cost differences; no consensus for health benefits; difficulty in quantification of likely efficiency gains; and challenges in quantification of the financing gap owing to uncertainties about financial commitments for health. Working Group 2 reviewed the different innovative mechanisms for raising and channelling funds. Challenges included: variable definitions of innovative finance; small evidence base for many innovative finance mechanisms; insufficient experience in harmonisation of global health initiatives; and inadequate experience in use of international investments to improve maternal, newborn, and child health. The various mechanisms reviewed and finally recommended all had different characteristics, some focusing on specific problems and some on raising resources generally. Contentious issues included the potential role of the private sector, the rights-based approach to health, and the move to results-based aid.

In this post, we summarize promising work at Results for Development Institute and suggest keeping an eye on R4D for deployment of new information delivery mechanisms in the coming months.

The Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Results for Development Institute are supporting a global knowledge access initiative – the Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI) - that seeks to collect, analyze and disseminate information about health market innovations in developing countries to facilitate the creation of strategic linkages among entrepreneurs, funders, policy makers and researchers.

Motivated by the lack of adequate information about the scale, scope and effectiveness of the innovative health financing and delivery models, the initiative targets mainly the complex and largely unregulated health markets in low and middle income countries. A number of studies have found that many patients in various countries – including populous nations such as China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria – rely on formal and informal private providers for key services such as treatment of malaria, diarrhea and acute respiratory infections with more than half of the total health expenditures largely being private, out-of-pocket transactions.

CHMI’s goal is to accelerate the diffusion of market-oriented health financing and delivery models that effectively facilitate the delivery of priority health interventions, improve quality of care and/or financial protection for the poor with a primary focus on programs in large and vibrant private health sectors. Of particular interest are innovative programs in service delivery, financing, regulation or accreditation, use of technology, supply chain and strengthening immunization programs.

See blog source from: Role of the Private Sector in Health Systems

Additional resources including interesting reports and conference news releases are under “Products“

The Maternal Health Task Force at EngenderHealth and Ashoka’s Changemakers are offering a new opportunity to the global Changemakers community and inviting entries for solution for Maternal Health.

The ultimate goal for this partnership is to harness innovation around Maternal Health issues in a bid to foster the next generation of leaders in this field  as well as to foster a strong community.

The Maternal Health Task Force is using the Changemakers’ online platform to identify new innovations and creative projects that are working to make the 5th Millennium Development Goal (MDG 5) a reality.

The existing opportunities for those  working in the Maternal Health sector include:

1.      Three (3) final prizes for Maternal Health Projects valued at US $5000 each for the attendance of the 2010 Maternal Health Change Summit in India to include flight, accommodation, transportation and meals.

2.      Sixteen (16) Young Champions of Maternal Health Mentorship (professionals ages 18 – 35 years) for the attendance of the 2010 Maternal Health Change Summit and a nine-month mentorship program with an Ashoka Fellow valued at US $40000 each. This scholarship will also cover flight, accommodation, transportation, meals in addition to the visa fee and stipend for the nine months.

3.      Early Entry Prize for Best Innovation (Deadline expired on January 27th, 2010)  for Young Professionals ages 18 – 35 years and non-Young Professionals – valued at US $1000, offering a homepage feature on Changemakers.com, a choice between MS Office Suite or Adobe Creative Suite, an  iPod and a digital camera.

The Change Summit will allow the winners to share their idea and projects with leaders and investors in the Maternal Health field.

More about the 2010 Maternal Health Change Summit

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