Sri Lanka is now a middle income country and already at the advanced stages of aging and disease transitions. This report aims to stimulate policy dialogue for control and prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and to improve the quality of NCD services to the people of Sri Lanka. It...

In recent years, the focus in many developing regions is increasingly moving away from communicable disease, where as Africa continues to face a high burden of communicable disease, malnutrition, and fertility. At the same time, the ways in which the World Bank operates are changing -...

The report discusses inter-related parts of blood transfusions systems, and presents an overview of the parts that need to be strengthened in Central Asia. Numerous parts are in serious need of organizational restructuring, new investment and increased budgetary support for operation and...

Several countries such as Japan, Brazil, Thailand and Turkey have achieved universal health coverage (UHC) and are proof of how UHC programs can serve as vital mechanisms for improving the health and welfare of the country's citizens. The UHC strives to ensure that no family is forced into...

This report examines three critically important areas to inform discussions on the appropriate level of health care spending in the Russian Federation: (i) the efficiency of spending on health care services; (ii) distributional impacts of spending on health care services; and (iii) the key...

Out-of-pocket payments (OOPs) are direct (at the point of service) financial contributions or co-payments by patients and their families associated with consumption of medical products (such as medicines) and/or services. They can be formal as well as informal payments. Together with taxation,...