SPARC and its consortium of 11 technical partners are working together to better understand what drives progress on strategic health purchasing in sub-Saharan Africa through the lens of health purchasing functions—specifying benefits packages, contracting, provider payment, and performance monitoring– rather than specific schemes or solutions.
SPARC and the technical consortium co-created a framework to describe and assess strategic purchasing systems taking this “functional approach.” They applied the framework to map purchasing functions, capacities, governance arrangements, and results in nine African countries with some benchmarks to indicate progress.
SPARC is launching a virtual policy dialogue series and knowledge products to share the learning and insights from this approach and stimulate active discussion about how policymakers, technical partners, and other stakeholders can apply this knowledge to continue to drive strategic health purchasing progress in their countries.