Over the past decade, a number of national or state-level reforms have been implemented by governments that are committed to achieving universal health coverage through “demand-side” financing models, often specifically targeting the poorest and informal sectors of their populations. While many implementing countries have not yet achieved universal health coverage, reforms are underway in countries as varied as Chile, Colombia, Estonia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI) is a global network of partners that seeks to improve the functioning of health markets in developing countries to deliver better results for the poor. CHMI works to accelerate the diffusion of Health Market Innovations, programs and policies—implemented by governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social entrepreneurs or private companies—that have the potential to improve the way health markets operate.

Attached File(s): 

Center for Health Market Innovations Description_2010-04-27.pdf

In Ghana today, about half of both rural and urban residents obtain health services from the private sector. Though only limited evidence is available on the quality of private care, an effectively regulated private health sector can potentially play an important role in the provision of health services.

Health workers play a critical role in the provision of health care and represent the single largest cost element in health services in low income countries. Millions of people die prematurely, or suffer from illness or disability unnecessarily, due to insufficient number of human resources for health (HRH). This problem has recently begun to receive the greater attention it deserves.

Over the past 25 years, AIDS has imposed a huge cost, in economic and social terms, on many countries, communities, and households around the world. At the same time, the price tag to respond fully and effectively in the areas of prevention, care and treatment, mitigation, and research has grown to tens of billions of dollars, and is continuing to increase. There have been dramatic increases in funding, but available resources are now becoming increasingly tight as the global recession adversely impacts both donor and developing countries, and as other competing priorities (e.g.