Assessment Uganda Health System Pre-assessment Report 2016

Abstract

The 2011-2015 USAID/Uganda Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS 1.0) hypothesized that a structurally sound, well-resourced, functioning health system, supporting access to quality service delivery is essential to ensuring effective utilization of health services and subsequently, to improving health outcomes in Uganda (USAID, 2010). Therefore, as USAID/Uganda approaches the end of implementation of CDCS 1.0 and in preparation for the next CDCS, it is important to understand the changes that have occurred in the elements of the system and elements that currently comprise Uganda’s national health system, the relationships and interdependencies between these elements, and the fiscal, political, economic, social, and multi-sectoral factors and stakeholders that influence and impact the system’s functionality. The World Health Organization defines a health system as “all organizations, people and actions whose primary intent is to promote, restore or maintain health,” the purpose of which is to improve access and coverage of responsive, efficient, effective, equitable, and quality-driven health services (WHO, 2000). To this end, a health system is supported by a set of basic building blocks - including human resources, financing, information systems, medical supply chains, governance mechanisms, and ervice delivery structures - linked to quality assurance mechanisms, all of which serve to uphold the health sector’s responsibility and accountability to both patients and their communities (Figure 1). For diagrammatic purposes, health systems frameworks often present these building blocks as parallel, stand-alone pillars. In practice, however, elements of a health system are mutually derivative and reinforcing.