Turkish public family planning program entered a new era in 1995 with the advent of a five-year phase out program of contraceptive commodities by the United States Agency for Development (USAID). The program entails that the financing responsibility for all contraceptive commodity requirements of the public sector family planning program ($4 M USD) will gradually be shouldered by the Government of Turkey. To date, the Turkish Ministry of Health (MoH) has managed to raise increasing amounts of funds just to keep the program afloat. However, due to shortages in funds and insecure nature of the funding sources, the MoH has developed a targeting and cost-recovery strategy to place the contraceptive financing policy on sustainable footings.
In the absence of a feasible public sector mechanism for charges, the MoH has decided to collect donations for contraceptives through a charitable Foundation with an extensive nation-wide network in MoH health care facilities.
The USAID-funded POLICY Project has been asked to provide technical assistance to assess the feasibility of the proposed policy and to implement a pilot study. Upon completion of a macro level feasibility study indicating an organizational capability at the Foundation to play the intended role of collecting earmarked donations, a pilot study was designed to assess the Foundation’s potential to raise funds through donations. The study was designed to provide insights into the way the mechanism works and the behaviors of both clients and providers.
The paper describes the cost-recovery mechanism, the results of the feasibility study, and early results of the 6-month pilot study.
Learning Objectives: The participant will be able to recognize an innovative approach to cost-recovery for the development of a sustainable contraceptive financing policy; and the technical work carried out for the development of the policy
Keywords: Financing, Sustainability
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.