On Friday 4th October 2019, members of the International Decision Support initiative (iDSI) were invited to the Ministerial Inauguration meeting of Ghana’s first National Health Technology Assessment (HTA) steering and technical committees for HTA. The invitation acknowledged iDSI’s 11 years of active involvement in the country advocating for prioritising evidence-informed decision making in Ghana
A Policy Dialogue on Designing and Implementing a Health Services Package for South Africa – March 2017, South Africa
The South African government’s vision for 2030 is to provide quality health care for all. In alignment with this vision, South Africa is on a path towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the National Department of Health (NDoH) released a White Paper in December 2015 on a National Health Insurance (NHI) for South Africa, subsequently updated in June 2017. In …
Indian public health budget allocation announced today at 20% lower than expected: Is the Government justified in not increasing the budget in line with Ministry of Health requests?
The government of India has today approved a three-year budget for its flagship public health programme, the National Health Mission. At $20billion, this budget is almost 20 percent lower than what the health ministry said was needed, according to documents reviewed by Reuters India. This leaves the potential increase of funding to the health system at 2.5% GDP from the …
Equality for women – can it help to achieve universal health coverage?
Focusing on universal health coverage and the sustainable development goals, Isabelle Parsons who recently completed work experience with the Global Health and Development Group at Imperial College London, shares her thoughts on the relationship between improving women’s rights and reducing healthcare costs. Maternal health care Universal Healthcare Coverage (UHC) is a basic human right but is something that a great …
WHO reports decreased local spending on health in presence of donor aid – so what does this mean?
Over the past decade there has been a noticeable shift in global health analyses from a macro focus on achievement of key metrics such as the Millennium (now Sustainable) Development Goals, to micro-level scrutiny of discrete aspects of health system functioning. One recent example is the WHO report “towards UHC – thinking public”, published online recently. This report explores the …
First steps towards HTA and priority setting in Ghana
Dr Francoise Cluzeau, Associate Director NICE International and Prof Jo Lord from Southampton Health Technology Assessment Centre ran a workshop in Accra with a multi stakeholder working group to help them develop a health economics model for the pharmacological treatment of hypertension and using the Ghana national Standard Treatment Guidelines. The workshop was coordinated by the Directorate of Pharmaceuticals of …
Monitoring Value for Money of donor expenditure: learning lessons from the iDSI Reference Case
How do donors in international development make sure they are not wasting money? Doing so is harder than it may initially seem. Money is spent thousands of miles away from headquarters, in settings where information is poor, politics complex and staff turnover rapid. In practice, many use Value for Money (VfM) analysis to try and stay on top of this …
iDSI Economist Intelligence Unit report: Driving value in healthcare spending in low- and middle-income countries
Of the US$7.1trn spent annually on healthcare globally in 2014, less than 1% (US$35.9bn) is Development Assistance for Health (DAH). This funding remains crucial for low- and middle-income countries to address their challenges. Before the financial crisis of 2008, development aid had been on an upward trend as steps to address the Millennium Development Goals advanced. However, funding levels have …