This Year 3 Quarter 1 Report (Oct-Dec 2021) was prepared for USAID and provides a progress update for all annual work plan activities. 

This Practice Spotlight brief describes outcome harvesting, a monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning approach that can help tease out the specific impacts of HSS interventions conducted in complex environments, where many factors may influence an outcome.

In Year 2, LHSS supported the work of USAID missions in 17 countries, with new activities launched in Bangladesh, Madagascar, Peru, and Timor-Leste. We also began work with the USAID Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean and we continued to expand our work with USAID Washington to enrich the global knowledge base on health system sustainability.

While securing adequate funding to improve quality of care is a challenge for many countries, some have been successful implementing financial mechanisms to incentivize high-quality care delivery, reducing fraud, waste, and abuse.

In this webinar, we’ll listen to experiences and lessons from health system strengthening activities that have used two promising approaches: contribution analysis and outcome harvesting.

This Practice Spotlight brief describes contribution analysis, a monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning approach well-suited for examining the effects of HSS interventions conducted in complex environments, where the causes of change are multifaceted and difficult to trace.

This strategy document lays out how the LHSS Project will support country partners in moving towards greater gender sensitivity, responsiveness, and ultimately transformation in their health systems.

It is easy to fall back on the habit of using catchall terms like “vulnerable groups” to refer to many different people, but relying on these terms can have a harmful unintended consequence.  

The Year 2 Annual Report provides a look into the geographic and technical scope of LHSS during October 2020-September 2021. The report includes stories of impact within five themes: Building Resilience, Supporting Local Capacity and Sustainability, Advancing Equitable Access to Essential Health Services, Promoting Quality Health Care, and Optimizing the Use of Health Resources. 

Population movement of this magnitude places huge stress on health systems in receptor countries. How can health care for migrants be financed? How can health system capacity be expanded? And how can health sector policies and national migration policies be harmonized? 

The events of the past 18 months underscore the importance of generally strong, equitable, and accessible health systems. COVID-19 is not the only threat we face, and as we prepare for the future it is critical that we begin to sufficiently invest in the foundational health system strengthening required to develop lasting resilience. 

Mobile phones, mobile money, and other advances in digital financial technology create new opportunities to speed progress towards universal health coverage. 

Effort to strengthen Vietnam’s social health insurance program will benefit people with HIV.

Ceremony marked the formal start of the LHSS Project’s four-year effort to help the Government of Vietnam implement its social health insurance program.