HARARE, September 19, 2016— The World Bank and the Health Results Innovation Fund (HRITF) launched today the Results and Impact Evaluation Workshop for Results-Based Financing (RBF). RBF has proven a successful innovation in reaching vulnerable households who were previously not accessing adequate care in part due to costs. By eliminating user fees and rewarding service delivery, RBF clinics have seen more rapid improvements in in-facility delivery rates, in the uptake of post-natal care and even in the availability of drugs.
The Ministry of Health and Child Care will host the workshop and facilitate field-based learning visits to urban and rural districts implementing RBF to enable workshop participants to glean from Zimbabwe’s experiences and evidence.
“The workshop presents a great opportunity to learn from robust evidence on RBF and explore new frontiers of innovation in health care financing. Zimbabwe is uniquely positioned to host a conference on such magnitude as Government has since, 2011 adopted RBF and significantly improved health care outcomes in the country,” says Magnus Lindelow, World Bank Practice Manager.
As host of the conference Zimbabwe is being recognized for its overall progress in maternal and child health care using RBF and is expected to prove a source of rich evidence gathered from five years of implementation. Since its launch in 2011, Zimbabwe’s RBF program shows promising results including increases in institutional deliveries, post-natal care and quality of antenatal care.
“When we bring our babies to the clinic for immunization, we do not have to pay for the service, yet we receive all the medication and even family planning injections for free,” says RBF beneficiary Splendid Moyo. A mother of two, Splendid has received free health services at Bango clinic in Mangwe District.
At the conference, 26 government and Bank teams implementing RBF from Africa, Asia and Latin America will share the latest findings from impact evaluations on the effects of RBF as well as lessons from implementation so as to inform improved design, implementation and evaluation of RBF programs. The conference establishes avenues for knowledge sharing among country teams and the global RBF audience, and promote use of evidence and knowledge for policy decisions.
HRITF is supported by the Governments of Norway through Norad and the United Kingdom through the Department for International Development.
