Summary

In Jordan, we supported the government’s commitment to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) through improving equity and efficiency in the delivery of health services. Under a UNICEF-funded project, we collaborated with the High Health Council of Jordan to conduct health systems research that assessed health inequity, especially as it related to adolescents and refugees. In this research, we first measured out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure on health and catastrophic health spending across different socio-economic groups. Second, we analyzed the distribution of public subsidies for health or the “benefits” of government-financed health services. Third, we measured inequity in healthcare utilization across different socio-economic groups and the determinants of this inequity. Throughout this work, ThinkWell used methodologies such as benefit-incidence analysis and multi-level modelling techniques.

Through the USAID-funded Health Finance and Governance (HFG) project managed by Palladium, ThinkWell conducted core analytics and capacity building for the Government of Jordan. Specifically, ThinkWell analyzed efficiency issues in the Jordanian public health system and the data and systems requirements needed to assess allocative efficiency on an ongoing basis. We also provided recommendations for policy changes that could improve efficiency in the Jordanian public health sector. The published assessment report can be found here.

ThinkWell conducted an analysis to identify bottlenecks to achieving universal health coverage (UHC) in selected countries from the World Health Organization (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Region.

The analytic approach drew on ThinkWell’s implementation experience and augmented existing UHC assessment frameworks to examine the role of political, fiscal, cultural, and historical factors in scaling-up UHC.

Rigorous qualitative research applying ThinkWell’s UHC assessment framework was conducted in Morocco, Jordan, and Lebanon. Lessons from the study were disseminated to WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region countries.