Strategies for reaching the poor
This section looks at a number of health-related targeted strategies, and outlines what is known about the strengths and weaknesses of each strategy.
Some of the strategies (e.g. voucher schemes, community-based health insurance, health equity exemption funds) are referred to in the literature as 'demand-side financing' strategies since they give resources direct to users or to a third party that will act on their behalf with the aim of improving equity of access to health care. Consumer-led demand side financing for health and education: an international review provides a useful overview of selected demand-side financing mechanisms used in the health sector.
One of the best attempts to propose remedies to health inequalities probably reside in a recent project of the World Bank titled Reaching the poor with health, nutrition and population services: what works, what doesn’t and why. It provides eleven case studies that document how health, nutrition and population programmes have performed in reaching disadvantaged groups. The features of the programmes covered vary widely. It points towards the diversity of multiple potentially effective approaches and calls for reflection and creativity in finding the approach that best suits a particular setting.
- Consumer-led demand side financing for health and education: an international review
- ( T. Ensor / Oxford Policy Management , 2003)
- This paper, published by Oxford Policy Management, examines "demand side financing" of health and education services. This involves placing purchasing power into the hands of consumers, for instance ...
- Reaching the poor with health, nutrition, and population services: what works, what doesn’t, and why
- ( D. Gwatkin; A. Wagstaff; A. Yazbeck / World Bank , 2005)
- This book, from the Reaching the Poor Program (RPP), provides eleven case studies that document how health, nutrition and population programmes have performed in reaching disadvantaged groups. The stu...
