More than 120 people gathered in Kenney Auditorium at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced Studies on Thursday, April 7, when The Johns Hopkins–SAIS International Development Program and The Global Health Speaker Series, in collaboration with MCHIP, presented a panel of speakers who focused on “Using Performance-Based Incentives to Enhance the Quality of MNCH Interventions in Developing Countries: Theory and Practice.”
 
PBI refers to any program that transfers money or goods to either patients when they take health-related actions (such as having their children immunized) or healthcare providers, when they achieve performance targets (such as immunizing a certain percentage of children in a given area). PBI schemes also emphasize increased supervision, scrutiny of the data health facilities reports, and empowerment: autonomy over how to use extra funds, and this contribute to stregthening health systems. The approach is being tried all over the world, including in at least twenty countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and USAID is one of the global leaders testing and assessing the approach.
 
The panel included Alex Ergo, Senior Health Economist at Broad Branch Associates/MCHIP; György Fritsche, Senior Health Specialist from HDNHE at the World Bank; and Edgar Necochea, Director of Health and Organization at Jhpiego. The panel was moderated by Amanda Glassman, Director of Global Health Policy at the Center for Global Development. Also participating were Koki Agarwal, Director of MCHIP and Kelly Saldana, Senior Public Health Advisor at USAID.

“Today is World Health Day and what better way to celebrate it than we learning more about a topic of growing importance in the global health and development community- that of using performance-based incentives to enhance the quality of health care in developing countries,” said Agarwal. “PBI is a powerful tool that may be used to strengthen health systems and provide an incentive for providing high quality care and we will learn about how developing countries are using this tool to enhance quality of care.”
 
Saldana discussed how the US Government’s Global Health Initiative has recognized the importance of working with governments to strengthen health systems in order to ensure the sustainability of improvements and achieve health outcome goals. She also touched on the potential of performance based incentives (PBI) and said that well-designed PBI for maternal and child health allow for an enhanced focus on results-oriented health systems strengthening activities, which meet the objectives of demand creation, quality improvement and provider accountability. But she cautioned that concrete evidence regarding the appropriate design elements and uses of performance based financing and other incentives is not yet complete.
 
Each of the speakers offered their own insights into the world of PBI. Ergo provided an overview of PBI and argued that they are a powerful tool to strengthen health systems. Fritsche focused on experiences with Performance-Based Financing (PBF) in Rwanda and Burundi. Necochea reviewed an example of a PBI model in Mozambique, where MCHIP has partnered with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation to standardize healthcare processes with a focus on specific practices in model maternities using a Standards-Based Management and Recognition (SBM-R) approach.
 
The day concluded with a question and answer session during which the audience had a chance to participate.

To view this event in it's entirety via video online, click here

Presenter Presentations:

Alex Ergo, Overview of PBI

György Fritze, Experiences in Rwanda and Burundi

Edgar Necochea, PBI as a model in Mozambique

Visit our FaceBook page to see photos from the event.