About the Collaborative – This activity has concluded

The JLN collaborates with the USAID-funded Local Health System Sustainability Project (LHSS) to host this learning exchange.

Budget execution, or spending, refers to the processes supporting the flow of funds from a government’s treasury to the ministry of health (MOH), and in some countries to sub-recipients such as health care providers and subnational entities such as regional offices and districts. Budget execution forms part of the public financial management function that supports the purchase of health goods and services. Poor budget execution – money not spent or not spent in alignment with priorities – undermines the ability of MOHs to improve service and population coverage or increase financial protection.
MOH leaders know that improving budget execution is important, but practical guidance about how to do so is limited. While the causes of low budget execution are often deeply rooted in the financial laws of a country, and therefore take time to change, certain MOH practices can influence budget execution, and MOHs can take steps to adapt to the factors that are outside of their control. Identifying and documenting such practices, with a focus on the practical steps involved, will benefit MOHs that are looking to quickly accelerate progress in health budget execution.

The USAID-funded Local Health System Sustainability Project (LHSS) partners Abt Associates (Abt) and Results for Development (R4D) have established and are facilitating a Health Budget Execution Learning Exchange that brings together practitioners from 8 countries around the globe who are actively involved in health budget formulation and execution, to exchange their experiences with achieved successes in improving budget execution.

LHSS collaborates with the JLN to host this learning exchange. The purpose of the exchange is to share and document successful experiences of efforts to improve health budget execution and to provide up to five countries with deeper technical support to apply strategies to improve their health budget execution. The process of this exchange includes a technical framing and scoping period, a launch event, and two virtual learning sessions in addition to informal networking and information sharing throughout. The learning exchange will culminate with the development of a knowledge product that documents promising practices and lessons, which will be publicly available for countries to adapt and apply to strengthen their health budget execution.

Collaborative Countries

Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Laos, Liberia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Peru