The shaded side of the UHC cube: a systematic review of human resources for health management and administration in social health protection schemes.

Managers and administrators in charge of social protection and health financing, service purchasing and provision play a crucial role in harnessing the potential advantage of prudent organization, management and purchasing of health services, thereby supporting the attainment of Universal Health Coverage. However, very little is known about the needed quantity and quality of such staff, in particular when it comes to those institutions managing mandatory health insurance schemes and purchasing services. As many health care systems in low- and middle-income countries move towards independent institutions (both purchasers and providers) there is a clear need to have good data on staff and administrative cost in different social health protection schemes as a basis for investing in the development of a cadre of health managers and administrators for such schemes.

Germany's expanding role in global health.

Germany has become a visible actor in global health in the past 10 years. In this Series paper, we describe how this development complements a broad change in perspective in German foreign policy. Catalysts for this shift have been strong governmental leadership, opportunities through G7 and G20 presidencies, and Germany's involvement in managing the Ebola virus disease outbreak.

Encouraging maternal health service utilization: an evaluation of the Bangladesh voucher program.

With the ultimate goal of reducing maternal and neonatal mortality, many countries have recently adopted innovative financing mechanisms to encourage the use of professional maternal health services. The current study evaluates one such initiative - a pilot voucher program in Bangladesh. The program provides poor women with cash incentives and free access to antenatal, delivery, and postnatal care, as well as cash incentives for providers to offer these services.

Vouchers as demand side financing instruments for health care: a review of the Bangladesh maternal voucher scheme.

Objectives: Demand side financing (DSF) mechanisms transfer purchasing power to specified groups for defined goods and services in order to increase access to specified services. This is an important innovation in health care systems where access remains poor despite substantial subsidies towards the supply side. In Bangladesh, a maternal health DSF pilot in 33 sub-districts was launched in 2007.

Recurrent costs of HIV/AIDS-related health services in Rwanda: implications for financing.

Objective: To estimate recurrent costs per patient and costs for a national HIV/AIDS treatment programme model in Rwanda.

Methods: A national HIV/AIDS treatment programme model was developed. Unit costs were estimated so as to reflect necessary service consumption of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).

Extending social health insurance to the informal sector in Kenya. An assessment of factors affecting demand.

This paper contributes to analysing and understanding the demand for (social) health insurance of informal sector workers in Kenya by assessing their perceptions and knowledge of and concerns regarding health insurance and the Kenyan National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF). It serves to explore how informal sector workers could be integrated into the NHIF. To collect data, focus group discussions were held with organized groups of informal sector workers of different types across the country, backed up by a self-administered questionnaire completed by heads of NHIF area branch offices.

Thresholds for health insurance in Rwanda: who should pay how much?

Community-based health insurance schemes were introduced in Rwanda in 1999 and now cover 27% of the population. Due to widespread poverty, it remains unclear to what degree poorer population strata can be anticipated to pay into the system. This study investigates the extent to which the Rwandan population can financially contribute to obtain health insurance.