Health Policy Plus: Mozambique

Agency for International Development (USAID) and support from the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The project's HIV activities are also supported by PEPFAR. HP+ works globally to strengthen and advance health policy, improving the enabling environment for equitable and sustainable health services, supplies, and delivery systems in the areas of family planning and reproductive health, HIV, and maternal health. In Mozambique, HP+ supports the government in implementing strategies to solidify sustainable, predictable, and adequate financing for health programs and policies aimed at improving reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (RMNCAH). The project also assists the government in costing and implementing its HIV Acceleration Plan, which aims to reduce HIV rates among adults and children and accelerate progress toward UNAIDS' 95-95-95 goals. HP+ Mozambique focuses on providing long-term technical assistance to the Ministry of Health, strengthening governance and supply chain processes, enhancing health sector funds management, bolstering management and operations capacity, and improving health financing. The project provides assistance to the Department of Planning and Cooperation to ensure that resource allocation occurs in an evidence- and needs-based manner, and assists the Department of Health Information to monitor activities funded by Global Fund grants. HP+ also guides the development of an RMNCAH investment case aligned with the Global Financing Facility, a United Nations financing platform that brings stakeholders together to accelerate efforts to end preventable reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent deaths. The project assists in an assessment of the existing financial environment, updates costs within existing health sector strategies to account for priority RMNCAH interventions, and provides technical assistance to finalize costing and impact analyses for the investment case. In 2017, the government of Mozambique adopted the recommended World Health Organization treatment guidelines to initiate antiretroviral therapy for all people living with HIV regardless of CD4 count or clinical stage. HP+ costing analysis activities will provide key evidence on how available resources can be maximized to achieve UNAIDS' 95-95-95 targets in Mozambique. The project also assisted the Mozambican government in preparing an application to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which resulted in a $515 million grant award in February 2018.