Poverty Reduction Cooperation Fund

TA 4331: Support for Pro-poor Health Policies in Viet Nam
Financed by the Poverty Reduction Cooperation Fund

Project Summary

Viet Nam's Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS) recognizes that it is not enough to make healthcare physically accessible to all segments of the population. Out-of-pocket costs and other barriers - for example, travel costs and the opportunity cost of time - often prevent the poor from using available health services.

The Prime Minister's Decision 139 to establish province-level health care funds for the poor is an important step to reduce direct costs as an obstacle to healthcare use by the poor. However, reductions in direct costs alone may not suffice to eliminate existing differentials in healthcare use. Furthermore, Decision 139 covers only the poor people, leaving a vast number of near poor households still exposed to the risk of catastrophic healthcare expenditure.

This technical assistance (TA) shall support these pro-poor health sector policies in Viet Nam by:

• Strengthening the capacity of Ministry of Health in effectively implementing Decision 139
• Attaining deeper understanding of the determinants of the health service utilization, health care costs faced and health insurance enrolments by the poor and disadvantaged.

In particular, this TA will strengthen the monitoring and evaluation system for Decision 139 and support training for officials responsible for implementing the decision at the central and state levels. In addition, the TA will support policy research on the following issues:

• Health and poverty in Viet Nam
• Barriers to health care utilization by the poor
• Determinants of health care costs
• Demand for health insurance among rural population.

• Case Study [ PDF: 79kb | 2 pages ]
• Consultant's Report
• Press Release
• TA Paper [ PDF: 107kb | 18 pages ]
• TACR [ PDF: 32kb | 2 pages ]