Mapping of Reproductive Health Financing: Methodological Challenges

Abstract

Low level of funding for reproductive health (RH) is a cause of concern, given that RH service utilization in the vast majority of the developing world is well below the desired levels. Though there is an urgent need to track the domestic and international financial resource flows for reproductive health, the instruments through which financial resources are tracked in developing countries are limited. In this paper we examined the methodological and conceptual challenges of monitoring financial resources for family planning and reproductive health services at the international and national level. At the international level, the costs estimates for both reproductive health and family planning from the three widely used sources of data –Adding it up (2009), ICPD (2009), and Taskforce WHO Normative Approach (2009) are not directly comparable. Even after standardization, the estimated costs difference is about $7.5billion. At the national level Reproductive Health sub-accounts in the framework of National Health Accounts is considered to be the ideal source to track domestic financial flows for RH activities. However, weak link between data production by the RHA and its application by the stakeholders and lack of political will act as decelerate factor for the institutionalization of RHA at the country level.