Interest in the relationship between the management of public funds and the delivery of health services has increased in recent years. The number of tools that seek to understand and assess PFM institutions, practices, and outputs in health has also grown significantly.
A range of tools and measurement approaches are available for assessing performance in the six building blocks of health systems strengthening (i.e., service delivery, health workforce, health information systems, access to essential medicines, financing, and leadership/ governance). However, the tools vary significantly in their methodological approach, the cost to deliver, time to implement, and frequency of application to date. It is essential to assess the effectiveness of each tool to help government officials and their development partners to make informed choices over which tool – if any – might suit their particular needs.
Instead of providing a ranking of effectiveness or identifying the best tool, this review outlines the available eight options and highlights the advantages and disadvantages of particular tools. This document is based on research jointly produced by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to inform the development of an approach for UNICEF country offices to analyze and address public financial management bottlenecks in the health sector.
Any organization or individual working in the field of immunization economics can submit findings, opportunities, calls to action, or other relevant work below to be shared with our community.