A forthcoming report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on evidence for policy is already fuelling passionate debate, especially among scientists. Opinions are divided: some scientists believe strongly in the systematic assessment of evidence on the effectiveness of health system...

Recently, there has been broad consensus in the global health community on the need for health systems strengthening (HSS) to make further progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, there is still divergence on how HSS should be framed, what HSS...

Over the past few years a number of institutional solutions to the pooling of health risks have been advanced in a great number of reform proposals for developing countries. The empirical arguments in favour of such recommendations have the full force of accumulated experience in countries that...

Performance-based financing (PBF) approaches have expanded rapidly in lower-and middle income countries, and especially in Africa. The number of countries has grown from three in 2006 to 32 in 2013. PBF schemes are flourishing and cause considerable demand for technical assistance in executing...

This report is an activity under the technical support towards universal health coverage in Armenia, which includes advisory services and analytics aimed at supporting the government’s efforts to expand access to high-quality health care. The report, Strategic Purchasing for Better Health in...

Performance-based financing is increasingly being applied in a variety of contexts, with the expectation that it can improve the performance of health systems. However, while there is a growing literature on implementation issues and effects on outputs, there has been relatively little focus on...