Public-Private Teaming to Pay for Health
USAID’s International Health Program (IHP), led by Abt Global in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is facilitating domestic resource mobilization and solidifying commitments from local governments and private companies to allocate resources to address health priorities.
Under the DRC constitution, cities and communes are responsible for health care in their communities. Under IHP, Abt collaborates through a participatory approach with local governments to ramp up public-private support and funding for health.
For example, Abt supported the provincial health minister in Lualaba province in convening public and private representatives to identify options to mobilize resources for health. With insights from these pivotal discussions, Abt helped provincial stakeholders develop a multisectoral framework for collaboration in support of public-private financing for health. They formalized the framework in February 2020 by signing a contrat unique—an agreement that sets forth goals of the collaboration and stakeholder roles and responsibilities. Several months later, in spring 2020, stakeholders collaborating under the framework agreement raised more than $1.1 million in local commitments, including more than $500,000 dedicated for local health priorities for the province.
In Lualaba province’s Fungurume health zone, local authorities went a step further to work with public and private stakeholders to establish priorities for health and contribute more money to help pay for it. Backed by the framework agreement, and with Abt support, health officials collaborated with stakeholders including representatives of decentralized territorial entities, local mining companies, and development partners. Their objective was to align the health zone’s annual operations plan with the National Health Development Plan. This exercise led to additional funding commitments from the decentralized territorial entities to co-finance health initiatives such as construction of a new referral hospital and a health center. In addition, the Mayor of Fungurume committed $684,500 from mining royalties to help pay for local health needs spelled out in the operations plan.
