173671 Designing, testing, implementing and evaluating pro-poor financing schemes in Peru

Monday, October 27, 2008

Suneeta Sharma, PhD, MHA , Constella Futures, Constella Group, Washington, DC
Elaine P. Menotti, MPH , Usaid, USAID, Washington, DC
In efforts to address low levels of family planning use among the poor women in Junin, Peru we devised a two step process(1)identify and understand barriers that affect poor women's access to and use of FP services, (2)address identified barriers on existing financing mechanisms to ensure a sustainable and replicable response.

We identified appropriate policy interventions at three levels of government--local, regional, and central. The development and implementation of these interventions involved several interwoven processes: awareness-raising among a broad range of stakeholders, building partnerships and support, tapping into multisectoral planning groups, local capacity building, mobilizing information for decisionmaking, and updating pro-poor monitoring and evaluation indicators.

Four pro-poor strategies were selected and implemented: (1) strengthening FP/RH educational component of JUNTOS (conditional cash transfer program for extremely poor women); (2) mobilizing regional resources for IEC & quality improvement strategies; and (3) including FP in the package of services offered to poor women through social insurance.

Operationalization of the RH ‘charlas' resulted in increased number of educational sessions held, increased attendance of poor women at counseling sessions and improved quality of culturally appropriate counseling. A comparison of baseline (Nov-Dec 2006) and endline (Aug – Sept 2007) data shows that weekly attendance in counseling sessions at the selected health facilities increased from 568 to 1000 women. Continuous advocacy and effective policy dialogue resulted in the issuance of Supreme Decree N°004-2007-SA to include FP services within SIS.

Learning Objectives:
To develop an understanding of systematic evidence-based process of desiging, testing, implementing and evaluating pro-poor financing schemes Share lessons learned and recommendation for scale up

Keywords: Access to Health Care, Poverty

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I worked as activity manager and technical lead on this activity
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.