Project Title: 'Highlight' Health financing for universal health coverage in the era of shocks,monitoring risks and opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa
Project Description: COVID-19 has highlighted the challenges that shocks, such as infectious disease outbreaks, represent for health systems financing, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) which are progressing towards universal health coverage (UHC) and have a limited domestic resource base. In such settings, pandemics can represent a potential sustainability threat to domestic health financing due to their systemic nature, and the associated economic shocks and debt servicing. Equally, the growing push for international donors to invest... COVID-19 has highlighted the challenges that shocks, such as infectious disease outbreaks, represent for health systems financing, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) which are progressing towards universal health coverage (UHC) and have a limited domestic resource base. In such settings, pandemics can represent a potential sustainability threat to domestic health financing due to their systemic nature, and the associated economic shocks and debt servicing. Equally, the growing push for international donors to invest in the COVID-19 response and future pandemic preparedness, could risk displacing funds away from other essential services such as reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH). It is currently unclear, whether and how the changes brought about by COVID-19 have translated into universal health coverage (UHC) progress. Our ESRC research project will focus on monitoring of funding arrangements and intermediate UHC indicators at country and sub-national level, in the wake of COVID-19, an area which has received less attention in literature. This research aims to assess whether and how shocks affect progress in health financing for universal health coverage using COVID-19 as a case study, monitoring health financing arrangements, and progress towards UHC in relation to efficiency and equity in five African countries: Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Senegal and Sierra Leone. Aims and Objectives This research aims to assess whether and how COVID-19 has affected progress in health financing for UHC, in terms of health financing arrangements, efficiency, equity and UHC goals in five African countries: Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Senegal and Sierra Leone. This research has six main objectives. 1. Examine whether there is evidence of changes in health funding levels and sources since COVID-19 and of a displacement of funds away from RMNCH towards infectious diseases 2. Explore trends in the alignment and harmonisation of aid for health, RMNCH and infectious diseases to determine eventual changes since COVID-19 3. Describe the levels and trends in subnational health funding levels by source 4. Measure trends in efficiency of health financing in relation to UHC outputs at the subnational level and drivers of efficiency 5. Assess trends in equity of health financing allocations across subnational units in relation to economic and health need 6. Explore the relationship between efficiency and the UHC service coverage and financial protection goals Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) in collaboration with the LSHTM under the COUNTDOWN 2030 INITIATIVE will lead Objective 3-6 in three Anglophone countries (Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia). All these objectives in all countries relies on secondary data analysis.
Principal Investigator : Peter Binyaruka
Department Name :
Time frame: (2023-10-01) - (2025-07-31)
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) (Prime)
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (Normal)
External Collaborating Partners
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