Government has paid tribute to the World Bank for its continued support to Zimbabwean projects.
Officially opening the Results Based Financing (RBF) workshop in Zimbabwe on Wednesday, the Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa said government is charmed by the great work that the World Bank has contributed to exhibit especially to the health sector in the country.
“World bank has played a significant role in the health sector over the past few years. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that when we ask for counterfeit funding, the World Bank is always there.
“We are used to their generosity. We know that so far the World Bank has supported us with about $45 million for counterfeit funding,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
He added that the RBF comes at an opportune time when the Ministry of Health and Child Care with the support of World Bank completed a rigorous set of qualitative and quantitative evaluations which sought to answer important policy questions on Result Based Financing Program.
“To us Zimbabwe, Results Based Financing is not new, in 2006 government developed and adopted the Results Based Management Strategy (RBMS) with the explicit goal of improving the quality and quantity of services provided to our population in various sectors,” the Health Minister said.
He revealed that although Zimbabwe was a step ahead in terms Results Based Financing in the Health sector, limitation to resources and a mechanism to operationalize the RBMS was hampering progress.
He indicated that RBF is a mechanism that helps to accelerate progress through better use of resources and improved accountability at all levels of the health system rather than it being a replacement of input financing for the health sector.
“Thanks to the World Bank, we are glad to be piloting RBF in our two metropolitan provinces (Harare and Bulawayo). The low income urban areas face more challenges when accessing health care services.
“It is only fitting that as a country, we are moving to an RBF mechanism across rural and rural areas,” added Dr Parirenyatwa.
Results Based Financing for health is a concept designed to help people in poor countries live healthier lives by linking incentives with results.
RBF is being supported by the World Bank through the Health Results Innovation Trust Fund, which is financing the implementation and evaluation of six RBF pilot programs in Africa. Benin, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe each will receive between $10-14 million to implement and rigorously evaluate RBF schemes.
