Welcome to the USAID-funded Health Policy Plus (HP+) project website.
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President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the 2020–2030 Kenya Health Financing Strategy during the Annual Universal Healthcare Conference on February 7, 2022. The launch signals the government’s commitment to reform the health sector and achieve sustainable, high-quality services for all Kenyans. Among other priorities, the strategy recommends instituting mandatory pre-payment revenue generation from health insurance premiums, replacing out-of-pocket payment at the point of service, guided by fairness and affordability for different income levels. (This recommendation was adopted in a 2022 amendment to the National Health Insurance Fund Act, which has made membership in the fund mandatory for all Kenyans 18 years of age and above.) HP+ provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Health to develop and finalize the strategy, including facilitating stakeholder engagement and advocacy, generating evidence to inform policy priorities, and assisting with drafting the document. HP+ also supported the ministry to develop a communications and advocacy plan, an abridged version of the strategy, frequently asked questions, and a poster to facilitate dissemination. Read more about HP+’s support, lessons learned, and recommendations, including an interview with HP+ Kenya staff Stephen Muchiri and David Khaoya.
HP+ Madagascar has been supporting the Ministry of Public Health to draft a national health financing strategy to advance universal health coverage in the country. In December 2021, the ministry’s Secretary General led a workshop to validate the strategy with participants from technical and financial partners, civil society organizations, and the private sector. Throughout the strategy development process, HP+ supported staff to assess the country’s existing health financing mechanisms, develop national health financing goals, and define the strategy’s vision, objectives, and strategic axes. HP+ also played a role in supporting government partners to understand the purpose and importance of the strategy while facilitating dialogue between government actors, parliamentarians, donors, partners, and civil society representatives to ensure collective ownership of the strategy through a participatory, collaborative, and inclusive process. HP+ will now integrate stakeholder input into the strategy, coordinate finalization and dissemination, and support the development of an implementation plan and monitoring, evaluation, and governance frameworks.
HP+ held an event on November 18, 2021, to mark the launch of family planning activities in Niger’s Maradi and Zinder regions, which have the highest prevalence of child marriage in the country. The activities will strengthen the use of family planning services in the two regions and address critical challenges such as child marriage and low demand for contraceptives among adolescents. The activities complement the health policy work already being done alongside the Ministry of Public Health through HP+’s West Africa regional portfolio. The event was attended by government ministry officials, nongovernmental organization partners, youth organizations, community leaders, and local elected officials. The governor of Zinder thanked HP+ and remarked that the achievement of ambitious national family planning objectives “will require the full participation not only of key actors in the field of family planning but also of all stakeholders.”
On November 9, 2021, Liberia’s Ministry of Health launched a new private sector engagement strategy, which HP+ helped develop, moving the country’s health system a step closer toward achieving universal health coverage. At the launch, representatives from the Ministry of Health, county health team, USAID/Liberia, and the private sector praised the government’s commitment to engaging the private health sector to tackle some of the country’s most pressing challenges, referring to the day as a historic moment. The strategy provides a framework for transparent, informed, and effective engagement between the public and private health sectors. It highlights four goals to be implemented collaboratively between public and private stakeholders that focus on expanding access, quality of care, and financial protection for clients. To implement the strategy, the Ministry of Health will establish a multisectoral private sector engagement technical working group, roll out the strategy at the county level, and train key focal persons on private sector engagement. With this strategy, the Ministry of Health is committing to ongoing, deliberate engagement with the private health sector to tackle some of the country’s most pressing needs in the coming years.
In Malawi, HP+ has found powerful catalysts for change not just among typical stakeholder groups but in plain sight in villages, small organizations, churches, and mosques. In a series of blogs, staff describe working with individuals who, armed with facts and coaching, are able to effect change for individuals and society. An Act of Faith: Malawi Leaders Tackle HIV, published in Science Speaks, tells how religious leaders helped increase the uptake of HIV services. Sharing Information, Saving Lives: Noble Calling relates how, in just over a year, religious leaders and 632 volunteers living with HIV have brought nearly 4,000 people back to HIV care—a crucial step toward reaching epidemic control. The Power of the Pack tells the story of a group of determined women who were trained to be strong advocates to improve sexual and reproductive health policies for women and girls. The women are determined to pass on their experience, contacts, and know-how to the next generation to help deliver on commitments in Malawi’s Family Planning 2030 agenda.
In Kenya, HP+ supported Mombasa County to finalize Sector Working Group reports under the three-year budget plan, called the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework. These budget reports, used at national and county levels, are required to secure stakeholder input on family planning and other health spending priorities. HP+ provided technical and logistical assistance to develop the reports, highlighting priority needs and programs to guide resource allocation. Through HP+ support, these budgets and budget processes are better positioned to respond to citizen needs and resources specific to the county’s context.
Following an HP+ analysis that showed the potential impacts on maternal and neonatal deaths and stillbirths that could occur as a result of declining maternal health services due to diverted services and reduced coverage indirectly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, HP+ partner the White Ribbon Alliance (WRA) developed and launched the “Safer Together” Respectful Maternity Care advocacy and communications campaign. The campaign is being used by WRA National Alliances and other stakeholders in USAID priority countries—including Pakistan, India, Malawi, and Indonesia—to convene stakeholders, advocate for joint action, and disseminate joint messages to women, communities, and providers.
Indonesia’s Secretary General of the Ministry of Health expressed support for the swift adoption of new technical guidelines on public-private partnerships (PPPs) and encouraged national and subnational stakeholders to engage in implementation and budgeting for the new guidelines. HP+ has been working with the Indonesian government to develop a blueprint for how to engage in PPPs in non-infrastructure endeavors, such as the training of healthcare workers, management of healthcare facilities, and community-based prevention and promotion activities. The guidelines, which apply to the whole health sector, will soon be finalized and presented to Ministry of Health leadership for adoption.
A new blog by HP+’s Laura Brazee—Opening Doors: Mentoring for Effective Advocacy—was published by Knowledge SUCCESS. The blog shares insights from an intergenerational mentoring program for youth in Malawi. It demonstrates how engagement with mentors supports emerging young leaders to engage village, district, and national stakeholders to deliver on promises related to youth-friendly health services (YFHS) and strengthens advocacy for policies to end early marriage. Mentees were supported to build partnerships with youth networks and organizations to advance their advocacy work and connect to new stakeholders. View more Malawi-specific materials.
Mali’s Alliance of Muslim and Christian Religious Leaders has expanded their organizational by-laws to include working against gender-based violence (GBV), an important step forward for a country where faith leaders have significant influence over sociocultural practices that impact health. According to Mali’s 2018 Demographic Health Survey, 45% of women ages 15-49 have experienced violence. Following an orientation by HP+ on the types and prevalence of GBV in Mali, the faith leaders felt compelled to act. With the modified by-laws, the alliance joins forces with the National Program to Abandon GBV and other stakeholders to revive efforts to advance a law to combat GBV in Mali.
In Madagascar, HP+ has been working to support efforts to harness the demographic dividend as the country’s age structure shifts toward a larger workforce, boosting economic growth. On September 12, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, with support from HP+ and UNFPA, organized the official launch of the country’s Demographic Dividend Roadmap at an event in Antananarivo. The event, which brought together stakeholders involved in coordination of activities aimed at achieving the demographic dividend, was attended by the Minister of Economy and Finance Richard Randriamandrato and actors from the public and private sectors, civil society, and technical and financial partners. At the launch, Randriamandrato formally validated the roadmap and discussed the importance of considering the country’s family planning/reproductive health law in efforts geared toward achieving the demographic dividend. At the end of September, HP+ is supporting the Ministry of Economy and Finance to finalize a follow-up plan, including details on monitoring and evaluation, budgeting, and resource mobilization for key activities.
In late June, HP+ held a three-day training workshop in Mbabane on the oral pre-exposure prophylaxis implementation, planning, monitoring, and evaluation tool (PrEP-it) for 33 Ministry of Health officials, representatives of implementing partners, USAID, and other stakeholders including the World Health Organization and UNAIDS. The pilot workshop, which took place from June 24-27, gave participants hands-on experience in the five modules of the tool: PrEP cascade, capacity, target-setting, costing, and impact. Meanwhile, the development team garnered valuable feedback on the usability and functionality of the tool. The Ministry of Health utilized the segment on target-setting to set their actual national targets for PrEP scale-up based on desired coverage of eSwatini’s PrEP priority populations. As a result of the workshop, the eSwatini government was able to establish and set PrEP targets for the next five years—the first country to do so—by capitalizing on the participation and concurrence of stakeholders at the training. Version 1.0 of PrEP-it is scheduled for release in September 2019.
In late 2018, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Health Insurance Scheme broke new ground, holding its first ever stakeholders’ meeting—a move which led to the eventual release of nearly US$1.4 million in stalled funds and new political commitments by some of the FCT’s top leaders. In November 2018, the USAID-funded Health Policy Plus project and Nigeria’s FCT Health Insurance Scheme co-convened a stakeholder’s meeting to examine the implementation of the FCT Health Insurance Scheme since its roll-out in 2011 and generate lessons learned to improve the scheme’s implementation and expand access to high-quality healthcare. The meeting concluded with a list of recommendations, including a call for the government to ensure the prompt release of funds. Three days after the meeting, the FCT Director of Treasury released 350 million Naira (US$972,000) for payment of outstanding capitation to healthcare providers; the original request had been made six months prior. Additionally, 150 million Naira (US$417,000) was approved by the FCT Minister for payment of fee-for-service payments owed to providers since 2017. The government also committed to settling all remaining overdue payments by the end of 2018 and paying all first quarter 2019 payments in advance. HP+ Nigeria and partners are hard at work monitoring the progress of these commitments. Read the full news article.
USAID and PEPFAR, through HP+ is providing technical support to Guyana’s national AIDS program secretariat to plan for the country’s transition from external to domestic financing of HIV programs and services. This support includes the development mechanisms the government can use to directly support civil society through new “social contracting” measures. A meeting held in mid-November resulted in consensus among nearly 50 civil society, private sector, and government stakeholders and donors to move forward with a social contracting model. In addition to implementation of the model, HP+ will provide additional support to Guyana’s mobilization of domestic resources for HIV programs, including developing costing of civil society-led services and programs and technical assistance to Guyana’s high-level HIV Transition and Sustainability Steering Committee.
Full implementation of the Task Sharing Policy and Funding for Family Planning Costed Implementation Plan (CIP) in all States were among the key issues Family Planning Advocates identified as priorities that need urgent attention to scale up access to voluntary safe and quality Family Planning services in Nigeria. These issues were addressed earlier this month when the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) and the USAID-funded Health Policy Plus (HP+) project hosted a high-level Family Planning (FP) Advocates’ workshop in Abuja that highlighted the urgency and importance of Nigeria’s investment in expanding coverage and uptake of FP services. The event brought together prominent Nigerians from a wide variety of backgrounds to explore the challenges facing Family Planning and to commit to specific actions advocating for increased resources for FP intervention. Participants included religious leaders, elected officials, journalists, and leaders of business associations. Budget allocation; donor dependence; state-level service delivery; and data generation and management were identified as key advocacy issues to prioritize moving forward.