Engaging with public financial management challenges in the health sector

A resource guide for a problem-driven approach for UNICEF country offices

On 22 September 2022 in Buadiposo-Buntong BARMM, Philippines, Health Workers Ash Abubacar and Injilah Moca, go house-to-house in the communities covered by their rural health unit to offer vaccines to those unable to visit the health center.
UNICEF/U.S. CDC/UN0723200/Martin San Diego

About

This Resource Guide sets out a method for identifying and addressing public finance challenges to health service delivery using Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA). The resource guide sets out an approach to leverage government insight and capacity to address public finance bottlenecks that affect the availability, flow and use of resources for front line health service delivery.

The approach is the result of a collaboration between UNICEF and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), leveraging UNICEF expertise across public finance and local governance, and health. It builds on some of the latest ideas on technical support for public financial management and institutional reforms and explores how these could be more effective. The approach is grounded in original research that explores the relationship between public finance and health services delivery, as well as insights from field testing in Namibia, Uganda and Tanzania, and extensive consultation.

The resource guide includes a checklist to help leverage existing analysis to identify the most common public finance challenges, as well as templates and resources on topics such as stakeholder mapping, fund flow analysis and PDIA applications.

Files available for download