Assessing the role of development assistance for health in improving child health in Rwanda

Objectives

Rwanda has been benefiting from heavy foreign aid in financing its health sector and has seen one of the biggest falls in under-five mortality ever recorded. The mechanism of how foreign aid contributed to the country’s success in child mortality reduction is poorly understood. We propose an analytical framework to test a hypothesis that the level of health aid integration in to public health systems has a positive effect on child care financing, provision, utilization, and health outcomes.

Data and Methods

The study has two specific aims. Specific Aim 1 is to define and develop a metric to measure the level of aid integration into Rwanda’s public health systems. Data are from the Rwanda National Health Accounts, and Rwanda Health Resource Tracker. Specific Aim 2 is to understand health aid’s role in service provision at the health facility level, under-five children’s medical care utilization and their likelihood of being stunted at the individual level. A multivariate and multilevel model is used in analysis with the data from the District Health System Strengthening Tool and Rwanda Demographic and Health Surveys.

Results

Preliminary results show that health aid has been substantially integrated in the public health sector in Rwanda and made important contribution to financing provision of child medical care in rural health centers.  

Recommendations