Performance Based Financing-Rungwe Pilot: PBF Rungwe Training was a Success!!

PBF Rungwe Pilot project conducted successfully ten days training on PBF in Rungwe from 27^th September to 7^th October 2010. The training venue was at Catholic Youth Centre, located in Tukuyu township, about 1. 5 km from Tukuyu town centre. The training involved 14 health staff under FBOs facilities and 6 health staff under DMO office- total 20 participants. The training had three (3) objectives; these were: To provide participants with an understanding of the relationships between national policies, health policy and economic policies and how they are influenced by Performance Based Financing. The second objective being to understand the objectives, theories, best practices and instruments of Performance Base Financing and the last objective was to provide participants with knowledge and skills to enable them to improve the implementation of PBF in their settings. The training was coordinated by facilitators from KCMC, ETC-The Netherlands, HDP Rwanda, MOHSW and from CSSC- Competence centre. Moreover, the training was colorfully opened by the DMO Rungwe District – Dr. N. Sungwa. In his speech, he thanked EU, Cordaid and CSSC for choosing Rungwe to be the pilot area for PBF project. He added that, the district is proud of the project and working in collaboration with the project so that it becomes successful. Moreover, he explained that this is a new concept in Rungwe. He added that some three years back the government introduced similar project called P4P, which unfortunately was not successful. He promised that the Government is eagerly learning PBF in order to make it successful and thus improve health services provision in Rungwe district. He emphasized that, besides being new, PBF approach has appeal to the government as the right approach in improving health services delivery. Finally, he urged the participants to be attentive and inquisitive during the training as they will definitely be trainers to their peers in the District. Additionally, on Service Agreement he pointed out that the government is doing all it can to have service Agreement in the district, though the process would take some time. Moreover, it is worth noting that this training was blessed to have three key facilitators. The first one was Mr. Christian Habineza from HDP- Rwanda. During the training he shared his extensive experiences on implementing PBF projects in Rwanda and presented best practices through case studies. To a great extent, that was quite important as the participants realized that it is all possible and that PBF is a practical Health financing model. Another trainer was Dr. Albert from the Netherlands who is an international consultant. His rich experiences on East Africa health care services was a great asset to the training in general and his knowledge on PBF in Particular added value to the training. The above combination enabled the participants to grasp normally considered very academic lessons on: Socio- Economic Policies, Micro-Economics, Entrepreneurship of health facilities, understanding Costs, Comprehensive Council planning and Linking PBF with Service Agreement into practical issues on health. And the last one was Dr. Anna from MOHSW. Her participation added weight to the training, that the Government and in particular the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOSHSW) is supporting PBF as health financing Model in the Tanzania. She presented two topics: Tanzania Health Sector Reform and PPP. In total 24 topics were presented during ten days PBF Rungwe training. It was noted during daily evaluation that the training need to be customized as there are areas which need more refining to suit the environment. Generally, the training was quite successful as indicated in the final evaluation and the training objectives were met. Now, the pilot area i.e. Rungwe District is getting more PBF pioneers and supporters. They are expected to bring changes in their facilities. See photo below.