Health services can make an important contribution to improved health conditions among disadvantaged groups. Yet, the services supported by governments and development agencies too often fail to reach these people who need them most. Reaching the Poor with Health, Nutrition, and Population Services marshals the available evidence about pro-poor strategies that have proven to be effective and that can help in the development of programs to better assist disadvantaged groups. In doing so, it can serve as a resource for policy makers, development practitioners, and policy analysts concerned with health conditions among the poor.
Our study, carried out in the summer of 2003, measured the effectiveness of a Kenyan program dedicated to increasing the availability of reproductive health services to the poor through training and networking of private medical providers. The Kisumu Medical and Educational Trust (KMET) program focuses on family planning services and encourages providers to add these services to the normal range of consultations, commodity sales, and clinical care they already provide. The study looked at the pool of potential clients of KMET members to evaluate which wealth group benefits from the subsidy given to private providers through the KMET. Analysis of actual KMET clients was used to better understand the program’s success in pro- viding quality reproductive health care.
Published in Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) Discussion Paper: Reaching The Poor Program Paper No. 11, World Bank 2005
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