The Ministry of Health and Social Services gathered stakeholders at Midgard Country Estate to consult on standard operating procedures for social contracting. The goal:  reach consensus on implementation plans and outline the path ahead, encompassing regional dissemination, pilot planning, and early implementation phases scheduled for later in the year.

This brief describes opportunities to improve financial protection programs using behavior change approaches. The Practice Spotlights Social and Behavior Change series supports USAID’s Vision for Health System Strengthening 2030 by exploring how social and behavior change approaches can contribute to countries’ health system strengthening efforts.

Explore how the Ministry of Health and Social Services in Namibia, with support from the LHSS Project, is transforming health care access through the revised Essential Health Services Package.

With LHSS support, the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan hosted an Interagency Technical Working Group Coordination Meeting in Astana. Ministries of Health, Veterinary Services, Agriculture, and Ecology, alongside international organizations, discussed collaborative preparedness, human resource capacity for One Health, and joint disease investigation. 

This two-pager focuses on USAID’s Learning Question 6, "What are key behavioral outcomes that indicate a functioning, integrated health system? In what ways can integrated health system strengthening approaches explicitly include social and behavior change?"

This two-pager focuses on USAID’s Learning Question 4, “What are effective and sustainable mechanisms or processes to integrate local, community, sub-national, national, and regional voices, priorities, and contributions into USAID’s health system strengthening efforts?”

Agencies that rarely communicated joined hands last year to make sure poor and vulnerable residents are identified for assistance programs.

The East African Community (EAC) Secretariat, the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), and the Pan African Health Informatics Association (HELINA) have concluded a commitment by all three parties to foster stronger health data governance to drive digital transformation and innovations in the health sector of East Africa. 

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), with support from LHSS, commenced the first Technical Workshop on strengthening domestication and implementation of regional Health cross–border policies, in Bishoftu, Ethiopia.

This brief highlights the recent shifts in health systems practice toward more explicitly incorporating an SBC lens in social accountability activities that aim to improve overall health system performance and address inequities. The brief synthesizes the growing body of evidence on the role social accountability plays in increasing accessibility to better-quality health care services and uses case studies and lessons learned to highlight how SBC approaches can be more explicitly integrated into this aspect of HSS programming.

This brief builds on the USAID Local Health System Sustainability Project (LHSS) Strengthening Governance report (2022) and global National Quality Policy and Strategy (NQPS) survey, aiming to provide practical examples and considerations for country practitioners to consider on their quality journeys. It includes case studies of three countries that have used NQPS to mobilize and align resources for quality.

This brief presents what LHSS has learned through applying a systems thinking approach to its support for HSCs’ advocacy efforts in expanding PHC services in urban Bangladesh.

This two-pager focuses on USAID’s Learning Question 1, “What are the contributions of systems thinking approaches and tools to changes in health system outcomes? How do systems thinking approaches affect health system outcomes?”

This two-pager focuses on USAID’s Learning Question 5, “What are effective and sustainable mechanisms or processes that enable the participation of private sector, civil society, and public organizations in developing locally-led solutions to improve high-performing health care, especially for poor and vulnerable populations? What enables the effective participation or leadership of marginalized populations themselves in the development and implementation of these solutions? Under what conditions is this participation different?”

This two-pager focuses on USAID’s Learning Question 2, “What conditions or factors successfully facilitate the institutionalization and/or implementation at scale of good practices that improve health system outcomes, and why? What are lessons learned regarding planning for sustainability and achieving results at scale?”