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Health Finance Sector Brief                                                                          April 16, 2012




 Saving Lives, Supporting Healthy Development Through Results-Based
 Financing


Overview
The World Bank is championing a results-based financing approach that links incentives in the
health sector with set goals. These efforts are supporting initiatives in immunization,
contraception, antenatal care, skilled attendance at birth, postnatal care, and growth monitoring.
Results-based financing projects are improving health outcomes for the poor and saving lives
in countries such as Afghanistan, Argentina, Burundi, Mexico, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe.

  Full Brief—4 Pages
Saving Lives, Supporting Healthy Development Through Results-Based Financing (PDF, April
2012)


Challenge                                             RELATED LINKS
The MDGs for maternal and child health call on          MDG1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty & Hunger 
countries to reduce maternal mortality by three-        MDG4: Reduce Child Mortality 
quarters and child under-five mortality by two-         MDG5: Improve Maternal Health 
thirds between 1990 and 2015. But most
                                                        MDG6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria & other
developing countries, especially those in Africa,       diseases 
will not achieve these MDGs unless progress is
                                                        MDG8: Develop a Global Partnership for
greatly accelerated.
                                                        Development

Approach
To address this challenge, governments and development
partners—including more than 40 low- and middle-income              More Results
countries—are looking to results-based financing to increase
the impact of investments in health. By explicitly linking


                                                                    1.5m
incentives and results, this approach holds great promise for
increasing health service use and improving service quality,
efficiency, and equity. The aim is to focus on health results,
such as the number of women receiving early antenatal care,         previously uninsured pregnant
and delivering their babies in health facilities.                   women and children now have
                                                                    basic health insurance and
                                                                    secure access to services in
                                                                    Argentina.
Results
In Afghanistan, the government reduced the death rate of
children and infants from 257 and 165 to 97 and 77 per
1,000 live births, respectively, between 2002 and 2010. In
Argentina, Plan Nacer, a social insurance program, aims to          77
increase the health services use by pregnant women and              is the death rate of infants in
children under age 5. Because of the program, nearly 1.5            Afghanistan in 2010, reduced
                                                                    from 165 per 1,000 live births in
million previously uninsured pregnant women and children            2002.
now have basic health insurance and secure access to
services. In Zimbabwe, the program’s goal is to increase
coverage of maternal and neonatal health interventions in
targeted districts by 2012. So far, 37,408 beneficiaries have       MORE INFORMATION
benefitted from the pilot phase program conducted between            World Bank Health
July-August 2011.
                                                                     Results-Based Financing for
Partners                                                             Health

The Health Results Innovation Trust Fund (HRITF) is funded
by the governments of the United Kingdom and Norway,
which have committed US$555 million to the trust fund
                                                                 
through 2022. Other partners are recognizing the impact of
HRITF-supported programs and are pooling additional
resources for results-based financing.

Toward the Future
The Bank continues to focus on results-based health lending and is using the resources of the
HRITF to leverage additional resources from the International Development Association. At the
same time, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development is continuing its backing
for results-based financing in middle-income countries.