Country case descriptions : AID experience in health care financing -- Bolivia, Eastern Caribbean, Guatemala

The overview"s objective is to review, within the context of the HCF characteristics in the region, initiatives undertaken by USAID in this field and draw lessons that can be used to improve strategy development and policy dialogue in the Missions. A team of HCF specialists visited Bolivia, Guatemala, and the Regional Development Office in the Caribbean. This draft contains the main findings of the team for each of the countries. The reviews presented here consider broad issues of how financing priorities are identified and the impact of the activities and interventions which result from this process on improving the financing of the provision of health services with in the country. Specific lessons learned from each case are presented in detail in the corresponding sections. The visits to the field confirmed that there is no single "pre-packaged" strategy that can be applied to a particular country. A HCF strategy that is sound in one environment may not be appropriate in another. However, the lessons learned from these base studies form the basis for the development of a set of guidelines aimed to facilitate the identification of priority areas, the design of an appropriate strategy and the development of Missions" activities within a strategy framework.