On May 10 the HIV/AIDS Monitor invited key officials from OGAC/PEPFAR, the Global Fund for ATM, and the World Bank, and an expert on performance based funding (PBF) to discuss ways in which AIDS donors could improve the use of data about performance in their funding decisions.
Over the last few years there have been a series of articles emphasizing how special the price of zero might be for consumers. In 2004 Michael Kremer and Ted Miguel published a CGD working paper (later published in the QJE) showing that eliminating altogether the price parents would have to pay for de-worming medicine for their children had an extraordinarily stimulating effect on uptake compared to even a very small non-zero price.
Strengthening health systems to improve utilization, quality and efficiency of service delivery is a challenge that continues to stump smart people working in public health and development. A promising and increasingly prominent solution is paying health workers, health facilities and households to behave in ways that generate better health results. A few months ago, Ruth Levine reported on an upcoming workshop that would convene teams of African implementers and researchers to develop performance-based incentive schemes within their own health systems. Below, Rena Eichler reports back on her experiences from that workshop.