16
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      The bumpy trajectory of performance-based financing for healthcare in Sierra Leone: agency, structure and frames shaping the policy process

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          As performance-based financing (PBF) has been increasingly implemented in low-income countries, a growing literature has developed, assessing its effectiveness and, more recently, focussing on the political dynamics of PBF introduction and implementation. This study contributes to the latter body of literature by exploring decision-making processes on PBF in Sierra Leone during the 2010–2017 period. Sierra Leone presents an interesting case because of the ‘start-stop-start’ trajectory of PBF.

          Methods

          The qualitative case study is based on a document review and 25 key informant interviews with national stakeholders and international actors. Documents and interviews were analysed based on a political economy framework focusing on actors and structure, but also making use of concepts drawn from interpretive policy analysis to look at frames.

          Results

          Our analysis describes the process of negotiation and re-negotiation of PBF in Sierra Leone, highlighting the role of different players, both internal and external, their ideas, capacity and power relations, and the shifting narratives around PBF. It is shown that external actors driving the debate make use of ‘frames’, both actual (i.e., defining the timing and pace of the discussions, the funding available, etc.) and metaphorical (i.e., how PBF is interpreted, defined and understood) to fit in and influence the debate. This is facilitated by the lack of capacity and resources in the fragile setting. Other strategies, such as ‘venue shopping’ are employed, though they may add to fragmentation in the volatile context.

          Conclusions

          The retrospective view of the study has an analytical advantage, but findings are also relevant to guide practice. Although power relations and rent-seeking issues are difficult to overcome in resource and capacity-constrained settings, more attention could be paid to other elements. In particular, adopting shared frames to ensure a common and inclusive understanding of technical concepts such as PBF may be useful to ensure the political sustainability of reforms. Also, the ‘actual frames’ which define negotiation and implementation should remain flexible, allowing for disrupting events (e.g., the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone) as well as for time to develop national capacity and ownership in order to ensure longer-term political support and better health system integration.

          Related collections

          Most cited references44

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: found
          Is Open Access

          Framing and the health policy process: a scoping review

          Framing research seeks to understand the forces that shape human behaviour in the policy process. It assumes that policy is a social construct and can be cast in a variety of ways to imply multiple legitimate value considerations. Frames provide the cognitive means of making sense of the social world, but discordance among them forms the basis of policy contestation. Framing, as both theory and method, has proven to generate considerable insight into the nature of policy debates in a variety of disciplines. Despite its salience for understanding health policy debates; however, little is known about the ways frames influence the health policy process. A scoping review using the Arksey and O’Malley framework was conducted. The literature on framing in the health sector was reviewed using nine health and social science databases. Articles were included that explicitly reported theory and methods used, data source(s), at least one frame, frame sponsor and evidence of a given frame’s effect on the health policy process. A total of 52 articles, from 1996 to 2014, and representing 12 countries, were identified. Much of the research came from the policy studies/political science literature (n = 17) and used a constructivist epistemology. The term ‘frame’ was used as a label to describe a variety of ideas, packaged as values, social problems, metaphors or arguments. Frames were characterized at various levels of abstraction ranging from general ideological orientations to specific policy positions. Most articles presented multiple frames and showed how actors advocated for them in a highly contested political process. Framing is increasingly an important, yet overlooked aspect of the policy process. Further analysis on frames, framing processes and frame conflict can help researchers and policymakers to understand opaque and highly charged policy issues, which may facilitate the resolution of protracted policy controversies.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            'Paying for performance' in Rwanda: does it pay off?

            The study analyses strengths and weaknesses of the 'Paying For Performance' (P4P) approach rolled out in the Rwandan health sector since 2002. It uses three research methods: a cross-sectoral literature review on P4P, its history and its context; 69 mostly semi-structured interviews conducted in Rwanda; and an analysis of factors eventually confounding the impact evaluation of the Rwandan P4P approach. It is argued that P4P approaches can be traced backed in written form over four millennia and that considerable negative effects are reported throughout history. All side effects were found again in various forms in the Rwandan health sector. One particular side effect -'gaming'- seriously threatens to affect the quality of health services. It is argued that P4P implicitly (and unintentionally) promotes a questionable concept of human 'labour' and that its focus on improving indicators rather than systemic changes can be regarded as vertical and counter-productive. Two alternatives to the current P4P system are briefly depicted, and further research on the described challenges is recommended.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: found
              Is Open Access

              How do external donors influence national health policy processes? Experiences of domestic policy actors in Cambodia and Pakistan

              Abstract Although concerns have historically been raised about the influence of external donors on health policy process in recipient countries, remarkably few studies have investigated perspectives and experiences of domestic policymakers and advisers. This study examines donor influence at different stages of the health policy process (priority setting, policy formulation, policy implementation and monitoring and evaluation) in two aid-dependent LMICs, Cambodia and Pakistan. It identifies mechanisms through which asymmetries in influence between donors and domestic policy actors emerge. We conducted 24 key informant interviews—14 in Pakistan and 10 in Cambodia—with high-level decision-makers who inform or authorize health priority setting, allocate resources and/or are responsible for policy implementation, identifying three routes of influence: financial resources, technical expertise and indirect financial and political incentives. We used both inductive and deductive approaches to analyse the data. Our findings indicate that different routes of influence emerged depending on the stage of the policy process. Control of financial resources was the most commonly identified route by which donors influenced priority setting and policy implementation. Greater (perceived) technical expertise played an important role in donor influence at the policy formulation stage. Donors’ power in influencing decisions, particularly during the final (monitoring and evaluation) stage of the policy process, was mediated by their ability to control indirect financial and political incentives as well as direct control of financial resources. This study thus helps unpack the nuances of donor influence over health policymaking in these settings, and can potentially indicate areas that require attention to increase the ownership of domestic actors of their countries’ health policy processes.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                MBertone@qmu.ac.uk
                haja.wurie@usl.edu.sl
                dhmsamai@yahoo.com
                SWitter@qmu.ac.uk
                Journal
                Global Health
                Global Health
                Globalization and Health
                BioMed Central (London )
                1744-8603
                20 October 2018
                20 October 2018
                2018
                : 14
                : 99
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.104846.f, ReBUILD & Institute for Global Health and Development (IGHD), , Queen Margaret University, ; Edinburgh, UK
                [2 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2290 9707, GRID grid.442296.f, ReBUILD & College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS), ; Freetown, Sierra Leone
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8890-583X
                Article
                417
                10.1186/s12992-018-0417-y
                6195985
                30342544
                cf279ae2-037d-40a1-9c39-8d3106db2823
                © The Author(s). 2018

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 27 June 2018
                : 2 October 2018
                Funding
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000278, Department for International Development;
                Award ID: ReBUILD project
                Categories
                Research
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2018

                Health & Social care
                performance based financing,policy analysis,political economy analysis,interpretive policy analysis,framing theory,sierra leone

                Comments

                Comment on this article