Governance

Leadership and Governance

Leadership and governance is about the role of the government in health and its relation to other actors whose activities impact on health. There is no one ‘model’ describing the role of government in health. Rather, it should be guided by shared principles including but not limited to providing policy guidance, collecting intelligence and providing service oversight, fostering collaboration across the different parts of the health system, including the private sector, regulation, system design and ensuring accountability.

Policy Guidance

A principal Health Systems 20/20 contribution has been to advise governments and policy stakeholders on the advantages and disadvantages of alternative policy approaches. In the role of neutral broker, the project has provided objective and empirically-supported analysis of different policy options including.

Accountability

Health Systems 20/20 and its partners focus their assistance on structuring opportunities for the participation of providers, citizens and ministry officials in joint discussions about health planning, budgeting and monitoring and evaluation. In decentralized health systems, district health offices typically have little to no experience in communicating with local populations changes affecting health programs and service, or to solicit feedback. Health Systems 20/20’s predecessor project, PHRplus, helped the Government of Peru establish and publicize a health section within the national office of the ombudsman. Health section agents, who were completely independent of the Ministry of Health (MoH), solicited confidential feedback on the quality and availability of services from local citizens, informed the public about their rights in receiving health services, and registered – in confidence – complaints about services. Each complaint was fully investigated, and if found to be valid referred for remedial action to the MoH.