Health Equity and Quality Improvement Project (H-EQIP)
The Cambodian Health Equity and Quality Improvement Project (H-EQIP), with a total funding of US$175.20 million over a period of five years, is co-financed by the Royal Government of Cambodia and several Development Partners. KfW is co-financing the trust fund and a parallel accompanying measure, which GFA is implementing since October 2017. The objective of H-EQIP is to improve access to quality health services for targeted population groups with protection against impoverishment due to cost of health services. H-EQIP has three components:
- Strengthening health service delivery,
- improving financial protection and equity and
- ensuring sustainable and responsive health systems.
H-EQIP builds on innovations supported under the previous sector program, particularly Health Equity Funds (HEFs) for social health protection of the poor and performance-oriented Service Delivery Grants (SDGs) to health facilities and health administrations (Operational Districts and Provincial Health Departments). H-EQIP will further strengthen the results-based focus of both HEFs and SDGs.
Within the first component of H-EQIP, GFA is implementing independent quality assessments of health facilities and health administrations to verify the results of government-led assessments which form the basis for performance-based financing in the Cambodian health sector. A key strategic shift is to attain institutional sustainability through a transfer of responsibility from GFA to an independent government agency (Payment Certification Agency, PCA).