WHO Call for Proposals: Sustaining effective coverage in the context of transition from external assistance – Lessons from countries

The Department of Health Systems Governance and Financing from the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) 2030, call for proposals on Sustaining effective coverage in the context of transition from external assistance – Lessons from countries.

This call is for up to six county case studies examining how governments at national or sub-national level have responded (or not) to reductions in donor funding through changes in the service delivery architecture, health financing arrangements, information systems and governance arrangements, and how these changes have or have not influenced whether effective coverage of priority interventions previously funded by donors is sustained or not. Informed by quantitative data on coverage of specific donor-funded interventions, research teams will be required to develop analytical case studies based on a common conceptual framework and a common protocol to ensure that findings are comparable across countries.

Objectives:

• Support the generation of knowledge on how countries have (or not) been able to maintain effective coverage of priority interventions previously funded by donors.
• Develop analytically generalizable, cross-national learning based on this knowledge for researchers, policy- and decision-makers at national and sub-national levels and donors presented in outputs suitable for these audiences.
• Share this learning broadly, particularly among policy- and decisionmakers to better inform country-led processes to manage anticipated reductions in external funding and take advantage of the opportunities provided by these reductions for health systems strengthening efforts.

Eligibility:

• The Principal Investigator must be a researcher based in a research institution in a low- or middle-income country.
• The study must examine countries classified as low income or middle income (both upper and lower middle income) according to the World Bank country classification for 2020.
• Teams should be gender-balanced with women comprising at least 50% of the research team.
• The experience of researchers as reflected in the proposal as well as the CV of the PI should reflect experience both in: a) donor financing and transitions from donor funding in LMICs, b) analysis of health Call for proposals: Sustaining effective coverage in the context of transition from external assistance 7 systems including that in analyzing interactions across different health systems components and examining the role of political economy and implementation considerations in health systems performance.
• Teams must, in their proposals, be able to demonstrate both the availability of, and their own access to, longitudinal data on coverage relevant to the projects and initiatives that they are proposing as the anchors for their studies.
• Individuals from high-income countries are not eligible to apply as principle investigators. However, organizations based in LMICs, and individuals and organizations in high-income countries may collaborate to submit a proposal based on the condition that not more than 15% of the total grant value can go to individuals or organizations based in high-income countries.

Read more here. 

Proposals deadline January 25, 2021.