Results-based financing: a means for enhancing healthcare interventions : the case of Argentina

Abstract

(…) this work aims at reviewing how the focus on performance and effectiveness of public interventions can be beneficial for addressing development goals ¬ setting the attention on health initiatives¬, especially in developing nations who face unfavorable budget constraints. We intend to provide insight to evaluate the potential role of innovative designs to assist in the assembly of more capable, effective and resourceful public institutions. We will thus set the attention on understanding how results¬-based financing initiatives work, what their main features are and the reasons for implementing them. This theoretical framework will be useful to interpret the second half of the work, where we will review one such initiative carried out in Argentina. The experience of Plan Nacer and Programa SUMAR, a pay¬for¬performance healthcare program over a decade old, will reveal the viability and challenges of results¬based financing in this country. Argentina, it is worth stating, has a complex federal government structure with an uncoordinated and segmented health system, features which could strengthen the external validity of the conclusions derived from this review.