Who is in and who is out? A qualitative analysis of stakeholder participation in priority setting for health in three districts in Uganda

Stakeholder participation in the COVID-19 pandemic preparedness and response plans: A synthesis of findings from 70 countries

Stakeholder participation is a key component of a fair and equitable priority-setting in health. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for fair and equitable priority setting, and hence, stakeholder participation. To date, there is limited literature on stakeholder participation in the development of the pandemic plans (including the priority setting plans) that were rapidly developed during the pandemic. Drawing on a global study of national COVID-19 preparedness and response plans, we present a secondary analysis of COVID-19 national plans from 70 countries from the six WHO regions, focusing on stakeholder participation. We found that most plans were prepared by the Ministry of Health and acknowledged WHO guidance, however less than half mentioned that additional stakeholders were involved. Few plans described a strategy for stakeholder participation and/or accounted for public participation in the plan preparation. However, diverse stakeholders (including multiple governmental, non-governmental, and international organizations) were proposed to participate in the implementation of the plans. Overall, there was a lack of transparency about who participated in decision-making and limited evidence of meaningful participation of the community, including marginalized groups. The critical relevance of stakeholder participation in priority setting requires that governments develop strategies for meaningful participation of diverse stakeholders during pandemics such as COVID-19, and in routine healthcare priority setting.

Conditions for health system resilience in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Mauritania

INTRODUCTION

A country's ability to manage a crisis depends on its level of resilience. Efforts are made to clarify the concept of health system resilience, but its operationalisation remains little studied. In the present research, we described the capacity of the local healthcare system in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, in West Africa, to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

We used a single case study with two health districts as units of analysis. A context analysis, a literature review and 33 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The data were analysed using a resilience conceptual framework.

RESULTS

The analysis indicates a certain capacity to manage the crisis, but significant gaps and challenges remain. The management of many uncertainties is largely dependent on the quality of the alignment of decision-makers at district level with the national level. Local management of COVID-19 in the context of Mauritania's fragile healthcare system has been skewed to awareness-raising and a surveillance system. Three other elements appear to be particularly important in building a resilient healthcare system: leadership capacity, community dynamics and the existence of a learning culture.

CONCLUSION

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a great deal of pressure on healthcare systems. Our study has shown the relevance of an in-depth contextual analysis to better identify the enabling environment and the capacities required to develop a certain level of resilience. The translation into practice of the skills required to build a resilient healthcare system remains to be further developed.

Participatory action research to address lack of safe water, a community-nominated health priority in rural South Africa

BACKGROUND

Despite international evidence supporting community participation in health for improved health outcomes and more responsive and equitable health systems there is little practical evidence on how to do this. This work sought to understand the process involved in collective implementation of a health-related local action plan developed by multiple stakeholders.

METHODS

Communities, government departments and non-government stakeholders convened in three iterative phases of a participatory action research (PAR) learning cycle. Stakeholders were involved in problem identification, development, and implementation of a local action plan, reflection on action, and reiteration of the process. Participants engaged in reflective exercises, exploring how factors such as power and interest impacted success or failure.

RESULTS

The local action plan was partially successful, with three out of seven action items achieved. High levels of both power and interest were key factors in the achievement of action items. For the achieved items, stakeholders reported that continuous interactions with one another created a shift in both power and interest through ownership of implementation processes. Participants who possessed significant power and influence were able to leverage resources and connections to overcome obstacles and barriers to progress the plan. Lack of financial support, shifting priorities and insufficient buy-in from stakeholders hindered implementation.

CONCLUSION

The process offered new ways of thinking and stakeholders were supported to generate local evidence for action and learning. The process also enabled exploration of how different stakeholders with different levels of power and interest coalesce to design, plan, and act on evidence. Creation of safe spaces was achievable, meanwhile changing stakeholders' level of power and interest was possible but challenging. This study suggests that when researchers, service providers and communities are connected as legitimate participants in a learning platform with access to information and decision-making, a shift in power and interest may be feasible.

Priority setting for pandemic preparedness and response: A comparative analysis of COVID-19 pandemic plans in 12 countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted health systems and exacerbated pre-existing resource gaps in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (WHO-EMRO). Active humanitarian and refugee crises have led to mass population displacement and increased health system fragility, which has implication for equitable priority setting (PS). We examine whether and how PS was included in national COVID-19 pandemic plans within EMRO.

Methods

An analysis of COVID-19 pandemic response and preparedness planning documents from a sample of 12/22 countries in WHO-EMRO. We assessed the degree to which documented PS processes adhere to twenty established quality parameters of effective PS.

Results

While all reviewed plans addressed some aspect of PS, none included all quality parameters. Yemen's plan included the highest number (9) of quality parameters, while Egypt's addressed the lowest (3). Most plans used evidence in their planning processes. While no plans explicitly identify equity as a criterion to guide PS; many identified vulnerable populations - a key component of equitable PS. Despite high concentrations of refugees, migrants, and IDPs in EMRO, only a quarter of the plans identified them as vulnerable.

Conclusion

PS setting challenges are exacerbated by conflict and the resulting health system fragmentation. Systematic and quality PS is essential to tackle long-term health implications of COVID-19 for vulnerable populations in this region, and to support effective PS and equitable resource allocation.

Health Coverage and Financial Protection in Uganda: A Political Economy Perspective

BACKGROUND

As countries health financing policies are expected to support progress towards universal health coverage (UHC), an analysis of these policies is particularly relevant in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In 2001, the government of Uganda abolished user-fees to improve accessibility to health services for the population. However, after almost 20 years, the incidence of catastrophic health expenditures is still very high, and the health financing system does not provide a pooled prepayment scheme at national level such as an integrated health insurance scheme. This article aims at analysing the Ugandan experience of health financing reforms with a specific focus on financial protection. Financial protection represents a key pillar of UHC and has been central to health systems reforms even before the launch of the UHC definition.

METHODS

The qualitative study adopts a political economy perspective and it is based on a desk review of relevant documents and a multi-level stakeholder analysis based on 60 key informant interviews (KIIs) in the health sector.

RESULTS

We find that the current political situation is not yet conducive for implementing a UHC system with widespread financial protection: dominant interests and ideologies do not create a net incentive to implement a comprehensive scheme for this purpose. The health financing landscape remains extremely fragmented, and community-based initiatives to improve health coverage are not supported by a clear government stewardship.

CONCLUSION

By examining the negotiation process for health financing reforms through a political economy perspective, this article intends to advance the debate about politically-tenable strategies for achieving UHC and widespread financial protection for the population in LMICs.

Barriers to Equitable Public Participation in Health-System Priority Setting Within the Context of Decentralization: The Case of Vulnerable Women in a Ugandan District

BACKGROUND

Decentralization of healthcare decision-making in Uganda led to the promotion of public participation. To facilitate this, participatory structures have been developed at sub-national levels. However, the degree to which the participation structures have contributed to improving the participation of vulnerable populations, specifically vulnerable women, remains unclear. We aim to understand whether and how vulnerable women participate in health-system priority setting; identify any barriers to vulnerable women's participation; and to establish how the barriers to vulnerable women's participation can be addressed.

METHODS

We used a qualitative description study design involving interviews with district decision-makers (n=12), sub-county leaders (n=10), and vulnerable women (n=35) living in Tororo District, Uganda. Data was collected between May and June 2017. The analysis was conducting using an editing analysis style.

RESULTS

The vulnerable women expressed interest in participating in priority setting, believing they would make valuable contributions. However, both decision-makers and vulnerable women reported that vulnerable women did not consistently participate in decision-making, despite participatory structures that were instituted through decentralization. There are financial (transportation and lack of incentives), biomedical (illness/disability and menstruation), knowledge-based (lack of knowledge and/or information about participation), motivational (perceived disinterest, lack of feedback, and competing needs), socio-cultural (lack of decision-making power), and structural (hunger and poverty) barriers which hamper vulnerable women's participation.

CONCLUSION

The identified barriers hinder vulnerable women's participation in health-system priority setting. Some of the barriers could be addressed through the existing decentralization participatory structures. Respondents made both short-term, feasible recommendations and more systemic, ideational recommendations to improve vulnerable women's participation. Integrating the vulnerable women's creative and feasible ideas to enhance their participation in health-system decision-making should be prioritized.

The political economy of priority-setting for health in South Sudan: a case study of the health pooled fund

BACKGROUND

In fragile and conflict affected settings (FCAS) such as South Sudan, where health needs are immense, resources are scarce, health infrastructure is rudimentary or damaged, and government stewardship is weak, adequate health intervention priority-setting is especially important. There is a scarcity of research examining priority-setting in FCAS and the related political economy. Yet, capturing these dynamics is important to develop context-specific guidance for priority-setting. The objective of this study is to analyze the priority-setting practices in the Health Pooled Fund (HPF), a multi-donor fund that supports service delivery in South Sudan, using a political economy perspective.

METHODS

A multi-method study was conducted combining document review, 30 stakeholder interviews, and an examination of service delivery. An adapted version of the Walt and Gilson policy analysis triangle guided the study's design and analysis.

RESULTS

Priority-setting in HPF occurs in a context of immense fragility where health needs are vast, service delivery remains weak, and external funding is essential. HPF's service package gives priority to the health of mothers and children, gender-sensitive programming, immunization services, and a community health initiative. HPF is structured by a web of actors at national and local levels with pronounced power asymmetries and differing vested interests and ideas about HPF's role. Priority-setting takes place throughout program design, implementing partner (IP) contract negotiation, and implementation of the service package. In practice the BPHNS does not provide adequate guidance for priority-setting because it is too expansive and unrealistic given financial and health system constraints. At the local level, IPs must manage the competing interests of the HPF program and local health authorities as well as challenging contextual factors, including conflict and shortages of qualified health workers, which affect service provision. The resulting priority-setting process remains implicit, scarcely documented, and primarily driven by donors' interests.

CONCLUSION

This study highlights power asymmetries between donors and national health authorities within a FCAS context, which drive a priority-setting process that is dominated by donor agendas and leave little room for government ownership. These findings emphasize the importance of paying attention to the influence of stakeholders and their interests on the priority-setting process in FCAS.

Priority Setting and Equity in COVID-19 Pandemic Plans: A Comparative Analysis of eighteen African Countries

Priority setting represents an even bigger challenge during public health emergencies than routine times. This is because such emergencies compete with routine programmes for the available health resources, strain health systems and shift health-care attention and resources towards containing the spread of the epidemic and treating those that fall seriously ill. This paper is part of a larger global study, the aim of which is to evaluate the degree to which national COVID-19 preparedness and response plans incorporated priority setting concepts. It provides important insights into what and how priority decisions were made in the context of a pandemic. Specifically, with a focus on a sample of 18 African countries’ pandemic plans, the paper aims to: (1) explore the degree to which the documented priority setting processes adhere to established quality indicators of effective priority setting and (2) examine if there is a relationship between the number of quality indicators present in the pandemic plans and the country’s economic context, health system and prior experiences with disease outbreaks. All the reviewed plans contained some aspects of expected priority setting processes but none of the national plans addressed all quality parameters. Most of the parameters were mentioned by less than 10 of the 18 country plans reviewed, and several plans identified one or two aspects of fair priority setting processes. Very few plans identified equity as a criterion for priority setting. Since the parameters are relevant to the quality of priority setting that is implemented during public health emergencies and most of the countries have pre-existing pandemic plans; it would be advisable that, for the future (if not already happening), countries consider priority setting as a critical part of their routine health emergency and disease outbreak plans. Such an approach would ensure that priority setting is integral to pandemic planning, response and recovery.

Collaboration between the government and nongovernmental organizations in providing health-care services: A systematic review of challenges

BACKGROUND

Given the expanding range of health influencing factors, increasing expectations from the health systems, and general challenges such as insufficient resources, the health services needed by people cannot be provided completely by the governments alone. Therefore, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)-government collaboration is considered a common approach in health-care provision for different communities. Since the NGO-government collaboration is complicated and usually influenced by many challenges and issues, the present study was conducted to identify collaboration challenges between the government and NGOs in providing health-care services.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Using a systematic review method and searching in ISI Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Embase databases, using related keyword/terms, between March 2020 and June 2020, studies on NGO-government collaboration in the health area were collected without time limitation. After completing the article selection process, those articles that consistent with the research purpose were chosen for the final analysis.

RESULTS

From 4236 initially collected studies, 16 studies were chosen for the final analysis. Based on the content analysis of the selected articles, 70 challenges were identified in the NGO-government collaboration to provide health-care services. These challenges were divided into five main themes: structural issues, process issues, issues related to roles and responsibilities, trust and communications issues, and control and power relation issues and 11 subthemes.

CONCLUSION

The present study provides significant challenges by NGO-government collaboration in providing health-care services. Awareness of these challenges plays an important role in promoting such collaborations and enables these organizations to highly exploit the strengths of each other, resulting in a collaboration with win-win situation.

Estimating the cost of implementing a facility and community score card for maternal and newborn care service delivery in a rural district in Uganda

INTRODUCTION

This paper aimed at estimating the resources required to implement a community Score Card by a typical rural district health team in Uganda, as a mechanism for fostering accountability, utilization and quality of maternal and child healthcare service.

METHODS

This costing analysis was done from the payer's perspective using the ingredients approach over five quarterly rounds of scoring between 2017 and 2018. Expenditure data was obtained from project records, entered and analyzed in Microsoft excel. Two scale-up scenarios, scenario one (considered cost inputs by the MakSPH research teams) and scenario two (considering cost inputs based on contextual knowledge from district implementing teams), were simulated to better understand the cost implications of integrating the Community Score Card (CSC) into a district health system.

RESULTS

The total and average cost of implementing CSC for five quarterly rounds over a period of 18 months were USD 59,962 and USD 11,992 per round of scoring, respectively. Considering the six sub-counties (including one Town Council) in Kibuku district that were included in this analysis, the average cost of implementating the CSC in each sub-county was USD 1998 per scoring round. Scaling-up of the intervention across the entire district (included 22 sub-counties) under the first scenario would cost a total of USD 19,003 per scoring round. Under the second scaleup scenario, the cost would be lower at USD 7116. The total annual cost of scaling CSC in the entire district would be USD 76,012 under scenario one compared to USD 28,465 under scenario two. The main cost drivers identified were transportation costs, coordination and supervision costs, and technical support to supplement local implementers.

CONCLUSION

Our analysis suggests that it is financially feasible to implement and scale-up the CSC initiative, as an accountability tool for enhancing service delivery. However, the CSC design and approach needs to be embedded within local systems and implemented in collaboration with existing stakeholders so as to optimise costs. A comprehensive economic analysis of the costs associated with transportation, involvement of the district teams in coordination, supervision as well as provision of technical support is necessary to determine the cost-effectiveness of the CSC approach.

Understanding the impacts of NPM and proposed solutions to the healthcare system reforms in Indonesia: the case of BPJS

This study critically evaluates the adoption of a universal healthcare system recently introduced by the Indonesian government in 2014. Our study is driven by the lack of critical analysis of social and political factors and unintended consequences of New Public Management, which is evident in the healthcare sector reforms in emerging economies. This study not only examines the impact of economic and political forces surrounding the introduction of a universal health insurance programme in the country but also offers insights into the critical challenges and undesirable outcomes of a fundamental reform of the healthcare sector in Indonesia. Through a systematic and detailed review of prior studies, legal sources and reports from government and media organizations about the implementation and progress of an UHC health insurance programme in Indonesia, the authors find that a more democratic political system that emerged in 1998 created the opportunity for politicians and international financial aid agencies to introduce a universal social security administration agency called Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial (BPJS). Despite the introduction of BPJS to expand the health services' coverage, this effort faces critical challenges and unintended outcomes including: (1) increased financial deficits, (2) resistance from medical professionals and (3) politicians' tendency to blame BPJS's management for failing to pay healthcare services costs. We argue that the adoption of the insurance system was primarily motivated by politicians' own interests and those of international agencies at the expense of a sustainable national healthcare system. This study contributes to the healthcare industry policy literature by showing that a poorly designed UHC system could and will undermine the core values of healthcare services. It will also threaten the sustainability of the medical profession in Indonesia. The authors offer several suggestions for devising better policies in this sector in the developing nations.