This Note examines an innovative, donor-supported voucher scheme to treat and prevent sexually transmitted diseases in Nicaragua. Voucher schemes enable donors to purchase outputs rather than inputs while also offering beneficiaries a choice of provider, a feature that sets them apart from other...

Two fundamental goals of health systems are to maximise overall population health gain (referred to as efficiency) and to minimise unfair health inequalities (equity). Often there is a trade-off in maximising efficiency vis a vis equity and the relative weight given to one goal over the other is...

Beyond the terrible toll in human lives and suffering, the Ebola epidemic currently afflicting West Africa is already having a measurable economic impact in terms of forgone output; higher fiscal deficits; rising prices; lower real household incomes and greater poverty. These economic impacts...

This report provides a systematic review of the evidence on HIV vulnerability and response in all 53 countries of the WHO European Region, stretching from Iceland to the borders of China. It focuses on key populations most at risk of HIV infection: people who inject drugs, sex workers and men...

The need for safety nets in Sub-Saharan Africa is vast. In addition to being the world’s poorest region, Sub-Saharan Africa is also one of the most unequal. In this context, redistribution must be seen as a legitimate way to fight poverty and ensure shared prosperity - and all the more so in...

The report shows that there is good evidence that conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have improved the lives of poor people. Transfers generally have been well targeted to poor households, have raised consumption levels, and have reduced poverty, by a substantial amount in some countries....