Performance based-financing (PBF) a system of rewarding health service providers has proved an efficient strategy of improving health services in the country.

An evaluation carried out by the World Bank and School of Public Health at the National University of Rwanda revealed that PBF was effective.

"Children living around health centers that have PBF are less sick and better fed than children living around those that did not have the initiative,” reads a press release issued after the evaluation.

The evaluation carried out between 2006 and 2008 also showed that those health facilities with PBF provided better services generally.

The PBF system was introduced four years ago by the Ministry of Health with an aim of fast tracking the improvement of services delivered in the health sector.

The system that was deployed across the country has rapidly rejuvenated the quality and quantity of health services in the country.

In the government’s health strategic plan from 2005 to 2009, it had included PBF, quality assurance and Community Based Health Insurance (Mutuelle de Sante) as a way of accomplishing the country 2020 vision and the Millennium Development Goals.

According to the press release that was released by the PBF project, the initiative has doubled the delivery of babies in hospitals in Rwanda and effectively prevented HIV transmission of mother to child.

Due to the success of PBF, Rwanda has become a model for countries like Mongolia which sent delegations to borrow a leaf, according to the release. 

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