Launching Pay for Performance in Ethiopia: Challenges and Lessons Learned
Ethiopia’s Federal Ministry of Health designed a pay-for-performance (P4P) scheme that has not been implemented. It was intended to improve health care quality and utilization, and thereby the health outcome indicators associated with maternal and child health, family planning, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, as well as with strengthening the health system. An implementation guide outlines multiple aspects of the P4P scheme such as qualitative and quantitative indicators of care delivery that health workers and health facilities must meet in order to earn financial and nonfinancial awards. Moving from design to implementation is challenged by misalignment with nationwide civil service reforms. In describing Ethiopia’s experience, the case study provides an example of the design of a broad public sector P4P approach that incorporates intergovernmental transfers in a decentralized context with rewards for concrete health results at the facility level and the challenges of moving from design to implementation.
Tools (Listed as annexes in case)
- Proposed Indicators (draft quantitative and qualitative)
- Performance-Based Financing Tool and Guide
- Facility Action Plan for P4P Implementation
- Woreda and Regional Action Plan for P4P Implementation
Tools to assess gaps prior to P4P implementation
- At the federal MOH level
- At the regional health bureau level
- At the Woreda health office level
- At the hospital level
- At the health center level
- At the health post level
View additional tools used by P4P schemes being implemented elsewhere.
