Focal areas and competencies

• Health Systems Organisation, SWAp, PPPH, Decentralized Health Systems; National & Local Health System Performance Assessment.
• Health Financing, User Fees, Government Budget Funding; Donor Project/Donor Programme Funding; National Health Accounts; Health Systems & Global Initiatives.
• Public Private Partnership for Health, working with the Private-not-for Profit sub-sector.
• Medicines Management; Systems approach to availing essential medicines and supplies in resource constrained countries; capacity building for costing, forecasting, quantification and logistics management.
• Disease Control Programs Evaluation, HIV/AIDS, Immunization; Reproductive Health.

The key strength of HSDG is the consultants’ wide experience in planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of health sector programmes and projects, and their involvement as actors and advisers in the processes of Uganda’s health sector reforms over the last 2 decades and especially the period since 2000. In addition the directors have been involved in a number of activities in other countries within the sub-Saharan Africa region. We have acquired appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of decentralized service delivery and the sector-wide approach (SWAp) in health, and poverty reduction programming linked to budget support, and the opportunities and threats of substantial new financing through global health initiatives with its diversity of mechanisms and modalities.

We have seen what works well among the various models for scaling up access to new services and technologies in key areas including: HIV care, malaria control and immunization programmes and the synergies and challenges of various players in a national health system in the context of SWAp and Public Private Partnership for Health (PPPH). We understand the limits of the health management information system, and have gauged the real changes in service provision and management through our involvement in routine and specific performance monitoring, surveys, and special studies for technical reviews, annual joint review missions, strategic reviews of the health sector strategic plans and individual programme evaluations.