Sudan: Moving towards universal health coverage (UHC)
This brief discusses Sudan’s existing national plans and policies to achieve UHC. Among the national plans include the health financing reforms which led to the expansion of the Sudanese National Health Insurance (NHI) from civil servants and formal sector employees...
Achieving sustainable health financing in Zambia: prospects and advocacy opportunities for domestic resource mobilization
Zambia has demonstrated significant commitment to increasing domestic expenditure on health to ensure sustainable health sector financing. From 2003 to 2014, government health expenditure increased from US$67 million to US$514 million. However, beginning in 2013, the...
Supporting the development of a health benefits package in Malawi
Just like most low-income and middle-income countries, Malawi has used health benefits packages (HBPs) to allocate scarce resources to key healthcare interventions with the goal of achieving universal health coverage. However, with no widely accepted method for their...
Malawi Budget Brief 2020/2021: Living the promise to leave no one behind
This budget brief reviews the Malawi national budget 2020/21 and its relation to health. Specifically, the brief analyzes the size and composition of the National Budget, with a special focus on allocations to key social sectors that benefit children. The brief also...
Malawi budget brief 2019/2020: Towards full implementation of the essential health package
This budget brief explores the extent to which the FY2019/20 National Budget addresses health financing needs of citizens in Malawi, especially children. Specifically, it analyzes the size, composition and equity of allocations to the health sector in FY2019/20. The...
The Sierra Leone free health care initiative: process and effectiveness review
The introduction of the free health care initiative in 2010, which removed user fees for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under five was supported by earlier evidence that showed health-related financial costs were a major barrier to mothers and children...
Ethiopia Public Expenditure Review
Ethiopia’s remarkable socio-economic transformation over the last decade has been marked by: a reorientation of expenditure from recurrent to capital; a significant devolution of resources from Federal Government to Regions; and a clear prioritization of...
Fiscal space for health in Malawi and revenue potential of innovative financing
Malawi has considered significant health financing and organizational reforms since 2013 to increase access to quality health services through increased domestic financing to the health sector. The health reform process consists of four areas, namely: (1) Establishing...
Willingness to pay for health insurance in the informal sector of Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone has a population of 6.6 million, and around 90% of the labour force in the country works in the informal sector, mostly subsistence or other small-scale agriculture. The extremely low gross domestic product per capita fuels the permanent fiscal deficit of...
Spending for health in Malawi: Current trends and strategies to improve efficiency and equity in health financing
Although remarkable progress has been made in improving health outcomes over the past decade, Malawi still faces challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic could reverse the gains in the health sector in Malawi. Due to the pandemic, there has been a reduction in the use of...