title: Performance-based financing: just a donor fad or a catalyst towards comprehensive health-care reform?
abstract: Performance-based financing is generating a heated debate. Some suggest that it may be a donor fad with limited potential to improve service delivery. Most of its critics view it solely as a provider payment mechanism. Our experience is that performance-based financing can catalyse comprehensive reforms and help address structural problems of public health services, such as low responsiveness, inefficiency and inequity. The emergence of a performance-based financing movement in Africa suggests that it may contribute to profoundly transforming the public sectors of low-income countries.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nationalestraat 155, Antwerp, 2000, Belgium. bmeessen@itg.be
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Meessen
authors.forename: Agnès
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Soucat
authors.forename: Claude
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sekabaraga
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D004526:Efficiency; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational / Q000191:economics* / Q000592:standards; D014943:Global Health; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000191:economics* / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D011203:Poverty / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000191:economics* / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D012432:Rwanda; D012941:Social Responsibility; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors