Health Governance

The World Bank’s 2004 World Development Report, focusing on accountability structures and processes, highlights the link between governance and sectoral service delivery. Since then, there has been a growing recognition that governance interventions can contribute to service delivery improvements and that technical elements need to be accompanied by governance elements to strengthen public services (Wetterberg et al. 2016). USAID’s HFG project supports country governments to both integrate governance in their health sector reform activities and improve specific aspects of health governance.

Evidence for Governance Contributions to Health System Performance and Health Outcomes

During a September 2016 workshop, HFG worked with USAID’s Office of Health Systems and the World Health Organization (WHO) to gather health governance experts and launch the Marshalling the Evidence Initiative. Four Thematic Working Groups, 1) Public Financial Management, 2) Policy and Regulation, 3) Uses of Knowledge in Health Systems, and 4) Accountability, presented the evidence for governance contributions to health systems at the Better Health Governance, Better Health Systems: The Evidence workshop in November 2017.

Governing for Quality in Health Care

In a survey of more than 100 government officials from nine Joint Learning Network (JLN) member countries, the need for governance of quality emerged as a priority. In response, HFG partnered with the JLN, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, WHO, and the USAID-funded Applying Science to Improve Systems (ASSIST) project to explore the challenges and successful experiences of governing quality at the national and sub-national levels.

Listen to HFG’s Advancing Health Systems podcast episode on Governance.

Listen to the June 2018 webcast, Strengthening Governance for Quality Health Care

Featured Publications

Visit the Health Governance Publication Library for a full list of HFG resources

Back to Top