 |
The Role of Community-based Organizations in Household Ability to Pay for Health Care in Kilifi District, Kenya
Health Policy and Planning 22 (6), p.381ff, by Catherine Molyneux, Beryl Hutchison, Jane Chuma and Lucy Gilson
This study published in the journal Health Policy and Planning examines the role of community-based organisations (CBOs) in helping households pay for health care. The authors use data from rural and urban households in Kilifi district to look at the potential for reaching poor people through these organisations.
Key findings include:
- Strategic CBOs often work with intermediate and local CBOs in ways that conflict with the approach of similar organisations, causing replication, conflict and confusion in communities.
- Strategic CBOs using micro-finance can meet long-term institutional aims (e.g. improved health with reduced poverty) and short-term household needs (e.g. need for food, treatment).
- Microfinance loans can be difficult to pay back and may not reach the poorest people.
- Intermediate and local-level CBOs are better placed to reach households and meet their expectations.
- They are compromised by poor links to other organisations, little political clout, and concerns about dishonesty among leaders and fellow members, particularly in local-level CBOs.
- Reaching the poorest households through CBOs is particularly hard: these households tend not to belong to CBOs, and the groups they form themselves are often relatively fragile.
Read id21 Research Highlight about this article
No comments
Add a comment:
|
|
|
