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Abstract Background The National Health Policy 2000 - 2009 and Health sector strategic plans I & II emphasized that Primary Health Care (PHC) would be the main strategy for national development and would be operationalized through provision of the minimum health care package. Commitment was to spend an increasing proportion of the health budget for the provision of the basic minimum package of health services which was interpreted to mean increasing spending at health centre level. This analysis was undertaken to gain a better understanding of changes in the way recurrent funding is allocated in the health sector in Uganda and to what extent it has been in line with agreed policy priorities. Methods Government recurrent wage and non-wage expenditures - based on annual releases by the Uganda Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development were compiled for the period 1997/1998 to financial year 2007/2008. Additional data was obtained from a series of Ministry of Health annual health sector reports as well as other reports. Data was verified by key government officials in Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and Ministry of Health. Analysis of expenditures was done at sector level, by the different levels in the health care system and the different levels of care. Results There was a pronounced increase in the amount of funds released for recurrent expenditure over the review period fueled mainly by increases in the wage component. PHC services showed the greatest increase, increasing more than 70 times in ten years. At hospital level, expenditures remained fairly constant for the last 10 years with a slight reduction in the wage component. Conclusion The policy aspiration of increasing spending on PHC was attained but key aspects that would facilitate its realization were not addressed. At any given level of funding for the health sector, there is need to work out an optimal balance in investment in the different inputs to ensure efficiency in health spending. Equally important is the balance in investment between hospitals and health centers. There is a need to look comprehensively at what it takes to provide PHC services and invest accordingly.

Abstract Background It has been argued that quality improvements that result from user charges reduce their negative impact on utilization especially of the poor. In Uganda, because there was no concrete evidence for improvements in quality of care following the introduction of user charges, the government abolished user fees in all public health units on 1st March 2001. This gave us the opportunity to prospectively study how different aspects of quality of care change, as a country changes its health financing options from user charges to free services, in a developing country setting. The outcome of the study may then provide insights into policy actions to maintain quality of care following removal of user fees. Methods A population cohort and representative health facilities were studied longitudinally over 3 years after the abolition of user fees. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to obtain data. Parameters evaluated in relation to quality of care included availability of drugs and supplies and; health worker variables. Results Different quality variables assessed showed that interventions that were put in place were able to maintain, or improve the technical quality of services. There were significant increases in utilization of services, average drug quantities and stock out days improved, and communities reported health workers to be hardworking, good and dedicated to their work to mention but a few. Communities were more appreciative of the services, though expectations were lower. However, health workers felt they were not adequately motivated given the increased workload. Conclusion The levels of technical quality of care attained in a system with user fees can be maintained, or even improved without the fees through adoption of basic, sustainable system modifications that are within the reach of developing countries. However, a trade-off between residual perceptions of reduced service quality, and the welfare gains from removal of user fees should guide such a policy change.

Background: It has been argued that quality improvements that result from user charges reduce their negative impact on utilization especially of the poor. In Uganda, because there was no concrete evidence for improvements in quality of care following the introduction of user charges, the government abolished user fees in all public health units on 1st March 2001. This gave us the opportunity to prospectively study how different aspects of quality of care change, as a country changes its health financing options from user charges to free services, in a developing country setting. The outcome of the study may then provide insights into policy actions to maintain quality of care following removal of user fees.Methods: A population cohort and representative health facilities were studied longitudinally over 3 years after the abolition of user fees. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to obtain data. Parameters evaluated in relation to quality of care included availability of drugs and supplies and; health worker variables.Results: Different quality variables assessed showed that interventions that were put in place were able to maintain, or improve the technical quality of services. There were significant increases in utilization of services, average drug quantities and stock out days improved, and communities reported health workers to be hardworking, good and dedicated to their work to mention but a few. Communities were more appreciative of the services, though expectations were lower. However, health workers felt they were not adequately motivated given the increased workload.Conclusion: The levels of technical quality of care attained in a system with user fees can be maintained, or even improved without the fees through adoption of basic, sustainable system modifications that are within the reach of developing countries. However, a trade-off between residual perceptions of reduced service quality, and the welfare gains from removal of user fees should guide such a policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global discussions on health systems strengthening have lately tilted towards increasing investments in human resources for health to address health workforce challenges, especially shortages and employment. Countries have, as a result, increased investments in the health workforce by expanding the production and recruitment of the needed health workforce, with the resultant effects of increasing health workforce budget space and the unending clamour by health policy actors for further increases. Despite these calls, there has been no wage bill affordability and budget space analysis to rationalise the sustainable production of and demand for health workers, which is the thrust of Ghana's current health workforce policy and strategy. Using an adapted approach (the Asamani approach), the study modelled the supply of some essential health workers and their associated cost of employment, compared it with the modelled budget space for health workforce employment and then drew conclusions on the wage bill sustainability for policy consideration. Of the seven cadres considered in the study (doctors, professional nurses, midwives, enrolled nurses, community health nurses, pharmacists and biomedical scientists), who constitute about 97% of the wage bill, the study found the baseline stock to be 129 378 in 2022, which was estimated to increase to 199 715 by 2027 and 254 466 by 2032 with corresponding wage bills of US$869.4 million and US$ 1.1 billion, respectively, holding routine salary increases constant. The budget space for health was, meanwhile, projected to be US$899.3 million and US$1.1 billion in 2022 and 2032 respectively, out of a projected overall government fiscal space of US$7 billion per year. This study concludes that, given current levels and mix of production, Ghana was estimated to expend an average of 88% of its health budget space as wage bill cost. This was 54.4% over the global median and 95.6% over the African Region's median, making the current regime unsustainable., Competing Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

Background: Reallocation of funding to respond the covid-19 pandemic, against a backdrop of longstanding underfunded health systems and high out of pocket expenditures for health, affected access to health services for households, especially those without social protection. These highlighted the urgency in curbing the impact of disruptions on progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) goals. Strategic investments in Primary Health Care (PHC) can help spur the necessary momentum., Methods: Under the collaborative platform of the Harmonization for Health in Africa's Health Financing Technical Working Group; UNICEF Regional Office for East and Southern Africa and WHO Regional Office for Africa convened the first PHC financing forum for 21 countries across the Eastern and Southern Africa Region. The three-day forum engaged key health and financing decision makers in constructive dialogue to identify practical actions and policy changes needed to accelerate delivery of UHC through improvements in PHC financing mechanisms and arrangements. The forum was attended by over 130 senior policy makers and technicians from governments, United Nations agencies and nonstate actors drawn from within country, regional and affiliating headquarter institutions., Results: The Regional Forum engaged participants in meaningful, and constructive discussions. Five themes emerged (1) regular measurement and monitoring of PHC services and spending (2) increasing investments in PHC (3) enhancing efficiency, effectiveness, and equity of PHC spending, (4) ensuring an enabling environment to invest more and better in PHC, and (5) better partnerships for the realization of commitments. An outcome statement summarizing the main recommendations of the meeting was approved at the end of the forum, and action plans were developed by 14 government delegations to improve PHC financing within country-specific context and priorities., Conclusions and Recommendations: The aims of this meeting in augmenting the political will created through the Africa Leadership Meeting (ALM), by catalyzing technical direction for increased momentum for improved health financing across all African countries was achieved. Peer exchanges offered practical approaches countries can take to improve health financing in ways that are suited to regional context providing a channel for incremental improvements to health outcomes in the countries., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Objectives: Empirical data on the impact of research-to-policy interventions are scant, with the few attempts mainly focusing on ensuring policymakers' timely access to evidence and evidence-informed dialogs., Methods: This article reflects on how the Thanzi Programme cultivates an approach of research-to-policy engagement in health economics. The program is structured around 3 interrelated pillars comprising research evidence generation, capacity and capability building, and research-and-policy engagement. Each pillar is described and examples from the Thanzi Programme are given, including illustrating how each pillar informs the other. Limitations and challenges of the approach are discussed, with examples of a way forward., Results: This program supports health system strengthening through addressing gaps identified by program partners. This includes providing health economics training and research and strengthened partnerships between in-country researchers and health policymakers, as well as between national and international researchers. Platforms bringing together researchers and policymakers to shape the research agenda, disseminate evidence, and foster an evidence-based dialog are institutionalized at country and regional levels. Health Economics and Policy Units have been established, which sit between the Ministries of Health and Universities, to augment policymakers and health economics researchers' engagements on priority health policy matters and determine researchable policy questions. The establishment of the Health Economics Community of Practice as a substantive expert committee under the East Central and Southern Africa Health Community bolsters the contribution of health economics evidence in policy processes at the regional level., Conclusions: The Thanzi Programme is an example of how a research-and-policy partnership framework is being used to support evidence-informed health resource allocation decisions in Africa. It uses a combination of high-quality multidisciplinary research, sustained research and policymakers' engagement and capacity strengthening to use research evidence to guide and support policy makers more effectively., Competing Interests: Author Disclosures Links to the individual disclosure forms provided by the authors are available here., (Copyright © 2023 International Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: We highlight the importance of undertaking value assessments for health system inputs if allocative efficiency is to be achieve with health sector resources, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries. However, methodological challenges complicated the application of current economic evaluation techniques to health system input investments., Methods: We undertake a review of the literature to examine how assessments of investments in health system inputs have been considered to date, highlighting several studies that have suggested ways to address the methodological issues. Additionally, we surveyed how empirical economic evaluations of health system inputs have approached these issues. Finally, we highlight the steps required to move toward a comprehensive standardized framework for undertaking economic evaluations to make value assessments for investments in health systems., Results: Although the methodological challenges have been illustrated, a comprehensive framework for value assessments of health system inputs, guiding the evidence required, does not exist. The applied literature of economic evaluations of health system inputs has largely ignored the issues, likely resulting in inaccurate assessments of cost-effectiveness., Conclusions: A majority of health sector budgets are spent on health system inputs, facilitating the provision of healthcare interventions. Although economic evaluation methods are a key component in priority setting for healthcare interventions, such methods are less commonly applied to decision making for investments in health system inputs. Given the growing agenda for investments in health systems, a framework will be increasingly required to guide governments and development partners in prioritizing investments in scarce health sector budgets., (Copyright © 2023 International Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Focusing on the East, Central, and Southern African region, this study examines both regional and country-level initiatives aimed at promoting multisectoral collaboration to improve population health and the methods for their economic evaluation., Methods: We explored the interventions that necessitate cooperation among policymakers from diverse sectors and the mechanisms that facilitate effective collaboration and coordination across these sectors. To gain insights into the demand for multisectoral collaboration in the East, Central, and Southern African region, we presented 3 country briefs, highlighting policy areas and initiatives that have successfully incorporated health-promoting actions from outside the health sector in Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Malawi. Additionally, we showcased initiatives undertaken by the Ministry of Health in each country to foster coordination with national and international stakeholders, along with existing coordination mechanisms established for intersectoral collaboration. Drawing on these examples, we identified the primary challenges in the economic evaluation of multisectoral programs aimed at improving health in the region., Results: We illustrated how decision making in reality differs from the traditional single-sector and single-decision-maker perspective commonly used in cost-effectiveness analyses. To ensure economic evaluations can inform decision making in diverse settings and facilitate regional collaboration, we highlighted 3 fundamental principles: identifying policy objectives, defining the perspective of the analysis, and considering opportunity costs. We emphasized the importance of adopting a flexible and context-specific approach to economic evaluation., Conclusions: Through this work, we contribute to bridging the gap between theory and practice in the context of intersectoral activities aimed at improving health outcomes., Competing Interests: Author Disclosures The authors reported no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2023 International Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared.

Background: Achieving financial risk protection for the whole population requires significant financing for health. Health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are plagued with persistent underfunding, and recent reductions in official development assistance have been registered. To create fiscal space for health, the pursuit of efficiency gains and exploring innovative health financing for health seem attractive. This paper sought to synthesize available evidence on the nature of innovative health financing instruments, mechanisms and policies implemented in Africa. We further reviewed the factors that hinder or facilitate implementation, the lessons learnt on the structure, the development process and the implementation., Methods: We conducted a systematic scoping review of the literature to analyze the nature, type, and factors impacting the implementation of innovative health financing mechanisms in the World Health Organization (WHO) African region., Results: Innovative health financing mechanisms are increasing in the WHO African region as a result of international policy, the need to improve healthy eating and social life of the populace, advocacy and the availability of international mechanisms to which countries can subscribe. The 41 documents included in this review reported ten innovative financing mechanisms in 43 out of the 47 WHO Africa region member states. The most common mechanisms include an excise tax on tobacco products (43 countries) and alcoholic beverages and spirits (41 countries), airline ticket levy (18 countries), sugar-based beverages tax (seven countries), and levy on oil, gas and mineral tax (four countries). Other mechanisms include the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) trust fund, the social impact bond, the financial transaction tax, mobile phone tax and equity funds. Funds generated from many mechanisms are not allocated to health, although some portions are allocated to health-related activities. In some countries where mechanisms implemented are public health-related, emphasis is placed on positive health behavior beyond raising funds. Persistent resistance from industries due to conflicting economic policies is a major challenge., Conclusions: Leveraging international policies and setting up intersectoral committees to develop and implement innovative mechanisms that involve excise taxes are recommended as possible solutions to the conflicts of interest., Competing Interests: Disclosure of interest: The authors completed the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Form (available upon request from the corresponding author) and disclose no relevant interests., (Copyright © 2023 by the Journal of Global Health. All rights reserved.)

Seven years to the Global Taskforce on Cholera Control's target of reducing cholera cases and deaths by 90% by 2030, Africa continues to experience a high incidence of the disease. In the last 20 years, more than 2.6 million cases and 60 000 deaths of the disease have been recorded, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Case Fatality Ratio remains consistently above the WHO-recommended 1% with a yearly average of 2.2%. Between 1 January 2022 and 16 July 2023, fourteen African countries reported 213 443 cases and 3951 deaths (CFR, 1.9%) of the disease. In this perspective article, based on available literature and the authors' field experiences in Africa, we discuss the underlying reasons for the sustained transmission of the disease. We posit that in addition to the well-known risk factors for the disease, the chronic cholera situation in Africa is due to the poor socioeconomic development status, weak household and community resilience, low literacy levels, weak capacity of African countries to implement the 2005 International Health Regulation and the pervasively weak health system on the continent. Stemming this tide requires good leadership, partnership, political commitment, and equity in access to health services, water, and sanitation. Therefore, we recommend that African governments and stakeholders recognize and approach cholera prevention and control from the long-term development lens and leverage the current cholera emergency preparedness and response efforts on the continent to strengthen the affected countries' health, water, and sanitation systems. We call on international organizations such as WHO and the Africa Centres for Diseases Control to support African governments in scaling up research and innovations aimed at better characterizing the epidemiology of cholera and developing evidence-based, context-specific, and innovative strategies for its prevention and control. These recommendations require long-term multisectoral and multidisciplinary approaches., Competing Interests: The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: OOO is on the Editorial Board of the Health Services Insights Journal, while JNO is the Editor-in-Chief. They did not participate in any way in the handling of this manuscript., (© The Author(s) 2023.)

Background: Low-and-middle-income countries, especially in Africa, lack the capacity to adequately invest in health systems to attain universal health coverage (UHC). As such, countries must improve efficiency and provide more services within the available resources. This systematic review synthesised evidence on the efficiency of health systems in the African region and its drivers., Methods: We conducted a systematic literature review guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 statement. Related studies were grouped and meta-analysed, while others were descriptively analysed. We employed a qualitative content synthesis for synthesising the drivers of efficiency., Results: Overall, 39 studies met a predetermined inclusion criterion and were included from a possible 4 609 records retrieved through a rigorous search and selection process. Using a random effects restricted maximum likelihood method, the pooled efficiency score for the Africa region was estimated to be 0.77, implying that on the flip side, health system inefficiency across countries in the African region was approximately 23%. Across 22 studies that used data envelopment analysis to examine efficiency at the level of health facilities and sub-national entities, the efficiency level was 0.67. Facility-level studies tended to estimate low levels of efficiency compared to health system-level studies. Across the 39 studies, 21 significant drivers of inefficiency were reported, including population density of the catchment area, governance, health facility ownership, health facility staff density, national economic status, type of health facility, education index, hospital size and bed occupancy rate., Conclusion: With approximately 23% of the inefficiency of health systems in Africa, improving efficiency alone will yield an average of 34% improvement in resource availability, assuming all countries are performing similarly to the frontier countries. However, with the low level of health expenditure per capita in Africa, the efficiency gains alone will be insufficient to meet the minimum funding requirement for UHC., Registration: PROSPERO: CRD42022318122., Competing Interests: Disclosure of interest: The authors completed the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Form (available upon request from the corresponding author) and disclose no relevant interests., (Copyright © 2023 by the Journal of Global Health. All rights reserved.)

Background: The role of the private sector in health is clear in many countries but engagement can be improved. The World Health Organization (WHO) developed a global strategy in 2020 focused on engaging the private sector in health service delivery through governance in mixed health systems and detailed six governance behaviours to guide its Member States. To operationalise these global ideas into practice, the Regional Office for Africa conducted a multi-country study to understand perceptions around the six governance behaviours. This article examines the perceptions of respondents from 13 African countries on the governance environment for private sector engagement in health., Methods: Data were collected through an online survey that was distributed to individuals from ministries of health and their partner organisations, private sector institutions and initiatives in countries and development organisations (n = 81) across 13 countries. The survey was based on the following six governance behaviours: build understanding, enable stakeholders, nurture trust, foster relations, align structures and deliver strategy., Results: Results showed that respondents had mixed perceptions of the governance environment for private sector engagement in health in their respective countries. Although 88% of respondents (n = 63/72) were familiar with the general inclusion of the private sector in national health sector plans, 63% of respondents (n = 45/71) noted there was limited or no integration of the private sector in the health system, and further, 28% of respondents noted there was no private sector reporting in health information systems (n = 19/69). Key opportunities presented in more than one governance behaviour include: (i) increasing private sector engagement in public sector activities, (ii) establishing clear roles and responsibilities through formal partnership agreements, (iii) improving data sharing through shared health information systems, (iv) incentives and subsidies, (v) capacity building, (vi) creating norms, guidelines, and regulations and (vii) conducting joint monitoring and evaluation. Many of these outlined overlapping concepts are not exclusive to one behaviour, thus, it is evident that when targeted, there is the potential to improve numerous governance behaviours. This further reiterates the view that the governance behaviours should be understood as connected and not unrelated areas., Conclusions: The study provides insight into the perceptions of respondents from select African countries on the governance environment for private sector engagement in health. These findings can inform the development of strategies and interventions to support and enhance private sector engagement in health in the region., Competing Interests: Disclosure of interest: The authors completed the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Form (available upon request from the corresponding author) and declare the following activities and relationships: all authors are employed by or consulted for the WHO., (Copyright © 2023 by the Journal of Global Health. All rights reserved.)

Countries that are reforming their health systems to progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) need to consider total resource requirements over the long term to plan for the implementation and sustainable financing of UHC. However, there is a lack of detailed conceptualization as to how the current health financing mechanisms interplay across health system elements. Thus, we aimed to generate evidence on how to utilize resources from different sources of funds in Africa. We conducted a scoping review of empirical research following the six-stage methodological framework for Scoping Review by Arksey & O'Malley and Levac, Colquhoun & O'Brien. We searched for published and grey literature in Medline, Cochrane Library, PubMed, WHO database, World bank and Google Scholar search engines databases and summarized data using a narrative approach, involving thematic syntheses and descriptive statistics. We included 156 studies out of 1,168 studies among which 13% were conceptual studies while 87% were empirical studies. These selected studies focused on the financing of the 13 health system elements. About 45% focused on service delivery, 13% on human resources, 5% on medical products, and 3% on infrastructure and governance. Studies reporting multiple health system elements were 8%, while health financing assessment frameworks was 23%. The publication years ranged from 1975 to 2021. While public sources were the most dominant form of financing, global documentation of health expenditure does not track funding on all the health system dimensions that informed the conceptual framework of this scoping review. There is a need to advocate for expenditure tracking for health systems, including intangibles. Further analysis would inform the development of a framework for assessing financing sources for health system elements based on efficiency, feasibility, sustainability, equity, and displacement., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Karamagi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Competing Interests: Disclosure of interest: The authors completed the ICMJE Unified Competing Interest form (available upon request from the corresponding author) and disclose no relevant interest. The views expressed in this article are solely of the authors and do not necessarily represent the perspectives, decisions, or policies of the affiliated institutions.

Background: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) resulted in the disruption of Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) services in the Eastern and Southern Africa region. To date, studies estimating the impact of COVID-19 disruptions have mainly focused on SRHR services without estimating the economic implication., Method: We used national service coverage data on the effectiveness of interventions from the lives saved tool (LiST), a mathematical modeling tool that estimates the effects of service coverage change in mortality. We computed years lost due to COVID-19 disruption on SRHR using life expectancy at birth, number of years of life lost due to child mortality, and life expectancy at average maternal death. We calculated the economic value of the lives saved, using the values of statistical life year for each of the countries, comparing 2019 (pre-COVID-19) to 2020 (COVID-19 era)., Findings: The total life-years lost were 1,335,663, with 1,056,174 life-years lost attributed to child mortality and 279,249 linked to maternal mortalities, with high case-fatality rates in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and Tanzania. The findings show COVID-19 disruptions on SRHR services between 2019 and 2020 resulted in US$ 3.6 billion losses, with the highest losses in Angola (USD 777 million), South Africa (USD 539 million), and Democratic Republic of Congo (USD 361 million)., Conclusion: The monetized value of disability adjusted life years can be used as evidence for advocacy, increased investment, and appropriate mitigation strategies. Countries should strengthen their health systems functionality, incorporating and transforming lessons learned from shock events., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Kipchumba Kipruto, Cyprian Karamagi, Ngusbrhan Kidane, Mwai, Njuguna, Droti, Muthigani, Olwanda, Kirui, Adegboyega, Onyiah and Nabyonga-Orem.)

Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared.

Progressive realization of Universal Health Coverage is inevitable given resource constraints. The incremental approach must be reflected in health sector strategic plans which serve as roadmaps. Using a matrix based on the health systems building blocks to extract data, we reviewed three successive sector strategies to assess priority issues addressed. We undertook a thematic synthesis to draw lessons and conclusion reported in this paper. Our review shows good practice as well as areas desiring attention if health sector strategic plans are to serve the intended purpose. Although all strategies were aligned to global and national development aspirations, were developed in a participatory manner they did not reflect the required incremental approach. The challenges to be addressed and the priorities remained largely the same over a 15-year period. The strategies and key results areas to be implemented in the different strategies were numerous with funding gaps. Improving the utility of strategic plans requires improving both the process and content. Implied in this approach is the need for prioritised and affordable strategic plans that reflect incremental efforts to attaining long term targets coupled with strong trend analysis and monitoring. Additionally, we advocate for strategic plan with a longer timeframe perhaps 10 years with adjustments at regular intervals., (© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Competing Interests: Disclosure of interest: The authors completed the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Form (available upon request from the corresponding author) and disclose no relevant interests.

Competing Interests: We declare no competing interests.

Competing Interests: Disclosure of interest: The authors completed the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest Form (available upon request from the corresponding author) and declare no relevant interests.

Investing in the health workforce to ensure universal access to qualified, skilled and motivated health workers is pertinent in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The policy thrust in Kenya is to improve the quality of life of the population by investing to improve health service provision and achieving universal health coverage. To realise this, the Ministry of Health undertook a Health Labour Market Analysis with to generate evidence on the relationship between supply, demand and need of the health labour force. In the context of supply, Kenya has a total of 189 932 health workers in 2020 with 66% being in the public sector and 58%, 13% and 7% being nurses, clinical officers and doctors, respectively. The density of doctors, nurses and clinical officers per 10 000 in Kenya in 2020 was 30.14, which represents about 68% of the SDG index threshold of 44.5 doctors, nurses and midwives per 10 000 population. Findings indicates that Kenya needs to align future production in terms of cadre and quantity to the population health needs. Achieving this requires a multisectoral approach to ensure apposite quantity and mix of intakes into training institutions based on the health needs and ability to employ health workers produced., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)

Background: Specialist health professionals improve health outcomes. Most low-income and middle-income countries do not have the capacity to educate and retain all types of specialists across various health professions. This study sought to explore and describe the opportunities available for specialist health professions education and the pathways to becoming a specialist health professional in East and Southern Africa (ESA). Understanding the regional capacity for specialist education provides opportunities for countries to apply transnational education models to create prospects for specialist education., Methods: A document analysis on specialist training programmes for health professionals was conducted in twenty countries in ESA to establish the capacity of specialist education for health professionals. Data were collected from policy documents, grey literature and websites at the country and institution levels., Findings: We found 288 specialist health professions education programmes across ten professional categories in 157 health professions education institutions from 18 countries in the ESA are reported. Medical and Nursing specialist programmes dominate the list of available specialist programmes in the region, while Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia have the highest number of specialist programmes. Most included specialist programmes were offered at the Master's level or as postgraduate diplomas. There is a general uneven distribution of specialist health professions education programmes within the ESA region despite sharing almost similar sociogeographical context and disease patterns. Current national priorities may be antecedent to the diversity and skewed distribution of specialist health professions programmes., Conclusion: Attention must be paid to countries with limited capacity for specialist education and to professions that are severely under-represented. Establishing regional policies and platforms that nurture collaborations towards specialist health professions education may be a proximal solution for increased regional capacity for specialist education., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Background and Objectives: The health workforce (HWF) is at the core of ensuring an efficient, effective and functional health system, but it faces chronic underinvestment. This paper presents a fiscal space analysis of 20 countries in East and Southern Africa to generate sustained evidence-based advocacy for significant and smarter investment in the HWF., Methods: We adapted an established empirical framework for fiscal space analysis and applied it to the HWF. Country-specific data were curated and triangulated from publicly available datasets and government reports to model the fiscal space for the HWF for each country. Based on the current knowledge, three scenarios (business as-usual, optimistic and very optimistic) were modelled and compared., Findings: A business-as-usual scenario shows that the cumulative fiscal space across the 20 countries is US$12.179 billion, which would likely increase by 28% to US$15.612 billion by 2026 but varies across countries-the highest proportional increases expected in Seychelles (117%) and Mozambique (69%) but lowest in Zambia (15%). Under optimistic assumptions, allocating an additional 1.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) to health even without further prioritising the proportional allocation to the wage bill could boost the cumulative fiscal space for HWF by US$4.639 billion. In a very optimistic scenario of a 1.5% increase in health expenditure as a proportion of GDP and further prioritisation of HWF within the health expenditure, the cumulative fiscal space for HWF could improve by some 105%-ranging from 24% in Zambia to 330% in Lesotho., Conclusion: Small increments in government health expenditure and increased prioritisation of HWF in funding in tandem with the 57% global average could potentially increase the fiscal space for HWF by at least 32% in 11 countries. Unless the HWF is sufficiently prioritised within the health expenditures, only increasing the overall health expenditure to even recommended levels would still portend severe underinvestment in HWF amid unabating shortages to deliver health services. Thus, HWF strategies and investment plans should include fiscal space analysis to deepen advocacy for sustainable investment in the HWF., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)

Background: Digital Health Interventions (DHIs) refers to the utilization of digital and mobile technology to support the health system in service delivery. Over the recent years, advanced computing, genomics, and artificial intelligence are considered part of digital health. In the context of the World Health Organization (WHO) global strategy 2020-2025, digital health is defined as "the field of knowledge and practice associated with the development and use of digital technologies to improve health." The scoping review protocol details the procedure for developing a comprehensive list of DHIs in Sub-Saharan Africa and documenting their roles in strengthening health systems., Method and Analysis: A scoping review will be done according to the Joanne Briggs institute reviewers manual and following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist and explanation. The protocol has been registered at the Open Science Framework (OSF) database at https://osf.io/5kzq7. The review will include DHIs conceptualized/developed/designed, adapted, piloted, deployed, scaled up, and addressing health challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa. We will retrieve data from the global DHI repository-the WHO Digital Health Atlas (DHA)- and supplement it with information from the WHO eHealth Observatory, eHealth Survey (2015), and eHealth country profiles report. Additional searches will be conducted in four (4) electronic databases: PubMed, HINARI-Reasearch4Life, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar. The review will also include gray literature and reference lists of selected studies. Data will be organized in conceptual categories looking at digital health interventions' distinct function toward achieving health sector objectives., Discussion: Sub-Saharan Africa is an emerging powerhouse in DHI innovations with rapid expansion and evolvement. The enthusiasm for digital health has experienced challenges including an escalation of short-lived digital health interventions, duplication, and minimal documentation of evidence on their impact on the health system. Efficient use of resources is important when striving toward the use digital health interventions in health systems strengthening. This can be achieved through documenting successes and lessons learnt over time., Conclusion: The review will provide the evidence to guide further investments in DHIs, avoid duplication, circumvent barriers, focus on gaps, and scale-up successful interventions., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Kipruto, Muneene, Droti, Jepchumba, Okeibunor, Nabyonga-Orem and Karamagi.)

Background: The Government of Lesotho has prioritised health investment that aims to improve the health and socioeconomic development of the country, including the scaling up of the health workforce (HWF) training and improving their working conditions. Following a health labour market analysis, the paper highlights the available stock of health workers in Lesotho's health labour market, 10-year projected supply versus needs and the financial implications., Methods: Multiple complementary approaches were used to collect data and analyse the HWF situation and labour market dynamics. These included a scooping assessment, desk review, triangulation of different data sources for descriptive analysis and modelling of the HWF supply, need and financial space., Findings: Lesotho had about 20 942 active health workers across 18 health occupations in 2020, mostly community health workers (69%), nurses and midwives (17.9%), while medical practitioners were 2%. Almost one out of three professional nurses and midwives (28.43%) were unemployed, and nearly 20% of associate nurse professionals, 13.26% of pharmacy technicians and 24.91% of laboratory technicians were also unemployed. There were 20.73 doctors, nurses and midwives per 10 000 population in Lesotho, and this could potentially increase to a density of 31.49 doctors, nurses and midwives per 10 000 population by 2030 compared with a need of 46.72 per 10 000 population by 2030 based on projected health service needs using disease burden and evolving population size and demographics. The existing stock of health workers covered only 47% of the needs and could improve to 55% in 2030. The financial space for the HWF employment was roughly US$40.94 million in 2020, increasing to about US$66.69 million by 2030. In comparison, the cost of employing all health workers already in the supply pipeline (in addition to the currently employed ones) was estimated to be US$61.48 million but could reach US$104.24 million by 2030. Thus, a 33% gap is apparent between the financial space and what is required to guarantee employment for all health workers in the supply pipeline., Conclusion: Lesotho's HWF stock falls short of its population health need by 53%. The unemployment of some cadres is, however, apparent. Addressing the need requires increasing the HWF budget by at least 12.3% annually up to 2030 or prioritising at least 33% of its recurrent health expenditure to the HWF., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Background: Many countries are faced with a multitude of health workforce-related challenges partly attributed to defective health workforce planning. Earlier efforts to guide the process and harmonise approaches to national health workforce policies and planning in the Africa Region included, among others, the development of the WHO Africa Regional Office (WHO/AFRO) Policies and Plans for Human Resources for Health Guidelines for Countries in the WHO African Region in 2006. Although this guideline has led to uniformity and rigour in developing human resources for health (HRH) policies and strategies in Africa, it has become imperative to synthesise the emerging evidence and best practices in the development of health workforce strategies., Methods: A document analysis was conducted using the READ ( R eadying materials; E xtracting data; A nalysing data and D istilling) approach., Results: Fourteen HRH policy/strategic plans were included in the study. The scope of the HRH strategic plans was described in three dimensions: the term of the strategy, sectors covered by the strategy and the health workforce considered in the projections. We found that HRH strategic plan development can be conceptualised as a cyclical, sequential multimethod project, with one phase feeding the subsequent phase with data or instructions. The process is very complex, with different interest groups and sectors that need to be satisfied. The HRH strategic plan development process comprises five main phases linked with external forces and national politics., Conclusion: There is a need for accurate and comprehensive HRH data collection, astute HRH leadership, and broad base and multisectoral stakeholder consultation with technical support and guidance from experts and major external partners for effective HRH strategic plan development., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

The COVID-19 pandemic had multiple adverse impacts on the health workforce that constrained their capacity to contain and combat the disease. To mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the Ghanaian health workforce, the government implemented a strategy to recruit qualified but unemployed health workers to fill staffing gaps and incentivise all public sector health workers. This paper estimated the cost of the new recruitments and incentives given to health workers and presented lessons for health workforce planning in future health emergencies towards health systems resilience. Between March and November 2020, 45 107 health workers were recruited, representing a 35% boost in the public sector health workforce capacity, and an increase in the recurrent public health sector wage bill by about GHS103 229 420 (US$17 798 176) per month, and about GHS1.24 billion (US$213.58 million) per annum. To incentivise the health workforce, the government announced a waiver of personal income taxes for all health workers in the public sector from April to December 2020 and offered a 50% additional allowance to some health workers. We estimate that the Government of Ghana spent about GH¢16.93 million (equivalent to US$2.92 million) monthly as COVID-19 response incentives, which translates into US$35 million by the end of 2020. Ghana invested considerably in health workforce recruitment and incentives to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in an almost 37% increase in the public sector wage bill. Strengthening investments in decent employment, protection and safety for the health workforce using the various resources are helpful in addressing future pandemics., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Background: There have been past efforts to develop benchmarks for health workforce (HWF) needs across countries which have been helpful for advocacy and planning. Still, they have neither been country-specific nor disaggregated by cadre-primarily due to data inadequacies. This paper presents an analysis to estimate a threshold of 13 cadres of HWF density to support the progressive realisation of universal health coverage (UHC)., Method: Using UHC service coverage as the outcome measure, a two-level structural equation model was specified and analysed in STATA V.16. In the first level of structural equations, health expenditure per capita-one of the cross-cutting inputs for UHC, was used to explain the critical inputs for service delivery/coverage. In the second level of the model, the critical inputs for service delivery were used to explain the UHC Service Coverage Index (UHC SCI), in which the contribution of the HWF was 'partial out'., Results: The analysis found that a unit increase in the HWF density per 10 000 population is positively associated with statistically significant improvements in the UHC SCI of countries (β=0.127, p<0.001). Similarly, a positive and statistically significant association was established between diagnostic readiness and the UHC SCI (β=0.243, p=0.015). Essential medicines readiness was positively correlated but not statistically significant (β=0.053, p=0.658). Controlling for other variables, a density of 134.23 per 10 000 population across 13 HWF categories is necessary to attain at least 70% UHC SCI., Conclusion: Consistent with current knowledge, the HWF is a significant predictor of the UHC SCI. Attaining at least 70% of the UHC SCI requires about 134.23 health workers (a mix of 13 cadres) per 10 000 population., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)

Background: As the global strategies to fight the SARS-COV-2 infection (COVID-19) evolved, response strategies impacted the magnitude and distribution of health-related expenditures. Although the economic consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic has been dire, and its true scale is yet to be ascertained, one key component of the response is the management of infected persons which its cost has not been adequately examined, especially in Africa., Methods: To fill gaps in context-specific cost of treating COVID-19 patients, we adopted a health system's perspective and a bottom-up, point of care resource use data collection approach to estimate the cost of clinical management of COVID-19 infection in Ghana. The analysis was based on the national protocol for management of COVID-19 patients at the time, whether in public or private settings. No patients were enrolled into the study as it was entirely a protocol-based cost of illness analysis., Result: We found that resource use and average cost of treatment per COVID-19 case varied significantly by disease severity level and treatment setting. The average cost of treating COVID-19 patient in Ghana was estimated to be US$11,925 (GH¢68,929) from the perspective of the health system; ranging from US$282 (GH¢1629) for patients with mild/asymptomatic disease condition managed at home to about US$23,382 (GH¢135,149) for critically ill patients requiring sophisticated and specialised care in hospitals. The cost of treatment increased by some 20 folds once a patient moved from home management to the treatment centre. Overheard costs accounted for 63-71% of institutionalised care compared to only 6% for home-based care. The main cost drivers in overhead category in the institutionalised care were personal protective equipment (PPEs) and transportation, whilst investigations (COVID-19 testing) and staff time for follow-up were the main cost drivers for home-based care., Conclusion: Cost savings could be made by early detection and effective treatment of COVID-19 cases, preferably at home, before any chance of deterioration to the next worst form of the disease state, thereby freeing up more resources for other aspects of the fight against the pandemic. Policy makers in Ghana should thus make it a top priority to intensify the early detection and case management of COVID-19 infections., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

The notion of equity in health service delivery has been embodied in several of the Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially the aspiration for universal health coverage (UHC). At the same time, escalating healthcare costs amidst dwindling resources continue to ignite discussions on the efficiency aspect of healthcare delivery at both operational and system levels. Therefore, health planners and managers have had to grapple with balancing the two, given limited resources and sophisticated population health needs. Undoubtedly, the concepts of equity and efficiency have overarching importance in healthcare. While efficiency dictates an 'economical' use of the limited healthcare resources, equity advocates their fair and ethical use. Some have leaned on this to argue that one has to be forgone in search of the other. In search of a 'middle ground', this paper explores the conceptual underpinnings of equity and efficiency in the context of healthcare resource allocation with some empirical examples from high-income and low- and middle-income settings. We conclude by arguing that equity and efficiency are, and ought to be, treated as complementary rather than conflicting considerations in distributing health resources. Each could be pursued without necessarily compromising the other-what matters is an explicit criterion of what will be 'equitable' in ensuring efficient allocation of resources, and on the other hand, what options will be considered more 'efficient' when equity objectives are pursued. Thus, equity can be achieved in an efficient way, while efficiency can drive the attainment of equity.

Background: Despite tremendous health workforce efforts which have resulted in increases in the density of physicians, nurses and midwives from 1.07 per 1000 population in 2005 to 2.65 per 1000 population in 2017, Ghana continues to face shortages of health workforce alongside inefficient distribution. The Ministry of Health and its agencies in Ghana used the Workload Indicators of Staffing Needs (WISN) approach to develop staffing norms and standards for all health facilities, which is being used as an operational planning tool for equitable health workforce distribution. Using the nationally agreed staffing norms and standards, the aim of this paper is to quantify the inequitable distribution of health workforce and the associated cost implications. It also reports on how the findings are being used to shape health workforce policy, planning and management., Methods: We conducted a health workforce gap analysis for all health facilities of the Ghana Health Service in 2018 in which we compared a nationally agreed evidence-based staffing standard with the prevailing staffing situation to identify need-based gaps and inequitable distribution. The cost of the prevailing staffing levels was also compared with the stipulated standard, and the staffing cost related to inequitable distribution was estimated., Results: It was found that the Ghana Health Service needed 105,440 health workers to meet its minimum staffing requirements as at May 2018 vis-à-vis its prevailing staff at post of 61,756 thereby leaving unfilled vacancies of 47,758 (a vacancy rate of 41%) albeit significant variations across geographical regions, levels of service and occupational groups. Of note, the crude equity index showed that in aggregate, the best-staffed region was 2.17 times better off than the worst-staffed region. The estimated cost (comprising basic salaries, market premium and other allowances paid from central government) of meeting the minimum staffing requirements was estimated to be GH¢2,358,346,472 (US$521,758,069) while the current cost of staff at post was GH¢1,424,331,400 (US$315,117,566.37), resulting in a net budgetary deficit of 57% (~ US$295.4 million) to meet the minimum requirement of staffing for primary and secondary health services. Whilst the prevailing staffing expenditure was generally below the required levels, an average of 28% (range 14-50%) across the levels of primary and secondary healthcare was spent on staff deemed to have been inequitably distributed, thus providing scope for rationalisation. We estimate that the net budgetary deficit of meeting the minimum staffing requirement could be drastically reduced by some 30% just by redistributing the inequitably distributed staff., Policy Implications: Efficiency gains could be made by redistributing the 14,142 staff deemed to be inequitably distributed, thereby narrowing the existing staffing gaps by 30% to 33,616, which could, in turn, be filled by leveraging synergistic strategy of task-sharing and/or new recruitments. The results of the analysis provided insights that have shaped and continue to influence important policy decisions in health workforce planning and management in the Ghana Health Service.

The move towards universal health coverage is premised on having well-functioning health systems, which can assure provision of the essential health and related services people need. Efforts to define ways to assess functionality of health systems have however varied, with many not translating into concrete policy action and influence on system development. We present an approach to provide countries with information on the functionality of their systems in a manner that will facilitate movement towards universal health coverage. We conceptualise functionality of a health system as being a construct of four capacities: access to, quality of, demand for essential services and its resilience to external shocks. We test and confirm the validity of these capacities as appropriate measures of system functionality. We thus provide results for functionality of the 47 countries of the WHO African Region based on this. The functionality of health systems ranges from 34.4 to 75.8 on a 0-100 scale. Access to essential services represents the lowest capacity in most countries of the region, specifically due to poor physical access to services. Funding levels from public and out-of-pocket sources represent the strongest predictors of system functionality, compared with other sources. By focusing on the assessment on the capacities that define system functionality, each country has concrete information on where it needs to focus, in order to improve the functionality of its health system to enable it respond to current needs including achieving universal health coverage, while responding to shocks from challenges such as the 2019 coronavirus disease. This systematic and replicable approach for assessing health system functionality can provide the guidance needed for investing in country health systems to attain universal health coverage goals., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Background: The developments in global health, digital technology, and persistent health systems challenges, coupled with global commitments like attainment of universal health coverage, have elevated the role of health research in low- and middle-income countries. However, there is a need to strengthen health research governance and create a conducive environment that can promote ethics and research integrity and increase public trust in research., Objective: To assess whether the necessary structures are in place to ensure health research governance., Methods: Employing a cross-sectional survey, we collected data on research governance components from 35 Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region. Data were analysed using basic descriptive and comparative analysis., Results: Eighteen out of 35 countries had legislation to regulate the conduct of health research, while this was lacking in 12 countries. Some legislation was either grossly outdated or too limiting in scope, while some countries had multiple laws. Health research policies and strategies were in place in 16 and 15 countries, respectively, while research priority lists were available in 25 countries. Overlapping mandates of institutions responsible for health research partly explained the lack of strategic documents in some countries. The majority of countries had ethical committees performing a dual role of ethical and scientific review. Research partnership frameworks were available to varying degrees to govern both in-country and north-south research collaboration. Twenty-five countries had a focal point and unit within the ministries of health (MoH) to coordinate research., Conclusion: Governance structures must be adaptive to embrace new developments in science. Further, strong coordination is key to ensuring comprehensiveness and complementarity in both research development and generation of evidence. The majority of committees perform a dual role of ethics and scientific review, and these need to ensure representation of relevant expertise. Opportunities that accrue from collaborative research need to be seized through strong MoH leadership and clear partnership frameworks that guide negotiations.

Background: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) availed opportunities for scaling up service coverage but called for stringent monitoring and evaluation (M&E) focusing mainly on MDG related programs. The Sustainable Development Goals 3 (SDGs) and the universal health coverage (UHC) agenda present a broader scope and require more sophisticated M&E systems. We assessed the readiness of low- and middle-income countries to monitor SDG 3., Methods: Employing mixed methods, we reviewed health sector M&E plans of 6 countries in the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa Region to assess the challenges to M&E, the indicator selection pattern and the extent of multisectoral collaboration. Qualitative data were analysed using content thematic analysis while quantitative data were analysed using Excel., Results: Challenges to monitoring SDG 3 include weak institutional capacity; fragmentation of M&E functions; inadequate domestic financing; inadequate data availability, dissemination and utilization of M?&E products. The total number of indictors in the reviewed plans varied from 38 for Zimbabwe to 235 for Zanzibar. Sixty-nine percent of indicators for the Gambia and 89% for Zanzibar were not classified in any domain in the M&E results chain. Countries lay greater M&E emphasis on service delivery, health systems, maternal and child health as well as communicable diseases with a seeming neglect of the non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Inclusion of SDG 3 indicators only ranged from 48% for Zanzibar to 67% for Kenya. Although monitoring SDG 3 calls for multisectoral collaboration, consideration of the role of other sectors in the M&E plans was either absent or limited to the statistical departments., Conclusion: There are common challenges confronting M&E at county-level. Countries have omitted key indicators for monitoring components of the SDG 3 targets especially those on NCDs and injuries. The role of other sectors in monitoring SDG 3 targets is not adequately reflected. These could be bottlenecks to tracking progress towards SDG 3 if not addressed. Beyond providing compendium of indicators to guide countries, we advocate for a more binding minimum set of indicators for all countries to which they may add depending on their context. Ministries of Health (MoHs) should prioritise M&E as an important pillar for health service planning and implementation and not as an add-on activity.

Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared.

Supportive supervision is perceived as an intervention that strengthens the health system, enables health workers to offer quality services and improve performance. Unfortunately, numerous studies show that supervisory mechanisms in many low-income countries (LICs) are suboptimal. Further, the understanding of the concept and its implementation is still shrouded in misinterpretations and inconsistencies. This analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of the concept of supportive supervision and how reorganisation of the approach can contribute to improved performance. The effectiveness of supportive supervision is mixed, with some studies noting that evidence on its role, especially in LICs is inconclusive. Quality of care is a core component of universal health coverage which, accentuates the need for supportive supervision. In the context of LICs, it is imperative for supportive supervision to be implemented as an on-going approach. Factors that affect supportive supervision encompass cultural, social, organizational and context dimensions but the capacity of majority of LIC to address these is limited. To this end, we underscore the need to review the supportive supervision approach to improve its effectiveness, and ensure that facility-based supervision embodies as many of the envisioned qualities as possible. We thus make a case for a stronger focus on internal supportive supervision where internal refers to health facility/unit/ward level. Inherent in the approach is what we refer to as 'supervisee initiated supportive supervision'. The success of this approach must be anchored on a strong system for monitoring, data and information management at the health facility level., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2018. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared.

African traditional medicine (ATM) and traditional health practitioners (THPs) could make significant contributions to the attainment of universal health coverage (UHC). Consequently, the WHO provided technical tools to assist African countries to develop ATM as a significant component of healthcare. Many African countries adopted the WHO tools after appropriate modifications to advance research and development (R&D) of ATM. An analysis of the extent of this development was undertaken through a survey of 47 countries in the WHO African region. Results show impressive advances in R&D of ATM, the collaboration between THP and conventional health practitioners, quality assurance as well as regulation, registration and THP integration into the national health systems. We highlight the various ways investment in the R&D of ATM can impact on policy, practice and the three themes of UHC. We underscore the need for frameworks for fair and equitable sharing of all benefits arising from the R&D of ATM products involving all the stakeholders. We argue for further investment in ATM as a complement to conventional medicine to promote attainment of the objectives of UHC., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

In most African countries, the district sphere of governance is a colonial creation for harnessing resources from the communities that are located far away from the centre with the assistance of minimally skilled personnel who are subordinate to the central authority with respect to decision-making and initiative. Unfortunately, postcolonial reforms of district governance have retained the hierarchical structure of the local government. Anchored to such a district arrangement, the (district) health system (DHS) is too weak and impoverished to function in spite of enormous knowledge and natural resources for a seamless implementation of universal health coverage (UHC). Sadly, the quick-fix projects of the 1990s with the laudable intention to reduce the burden of disease within a specified time-point dealt the fatal blow on the DHS administration by diminishing it to a stop-post and a warehouse for commodities (such as bednets and vaccines) destined for the communities. We reviewed the situation of the district in sub-Saharan African countries and identified five attributes that are critical for developing a UHC-friendly DHS. In this analytical paper, we discuss decision-making authority, coordination, resource control, development initiative and management skills as critical factors. We highlight the required strategic shifts and recommend a dialogue for charting an African regional course for a reformed DHS for UHC. Further examination of these factors and perhaps other ancillary criteria will be useful for developing a checklist for assessing the suitability of a DHS for the UHC that Africa deserves., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)