In 2009, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) started its journey towards achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This study examines the evolution of financial risk protection and health outcomes indicators in the context of the commitment of DRC to UHC. To measure the effects of such a commitment on financial risk protection and health outcomes indicators, we analyse whether changes have occurred over the last two decades and, if applicable, when these changes happened. Using five variables as indicators for the measurement of the financial risk protection component, there as well retained three indicators to measure health outcomes. To identify time-related effects, we applied the parametric approach of breakpoint regression to detect whether the UHC journey has brought change and when exactly the change has occurred.Although there is a slight improvement in the financial risk protection indicators, we found that the adopted strategies have fostered access to healthcare for the wealthiest quantile of the population while neglecting the majority of the poorest. The government did not thrive persistently over the past decade to meet its commitment to allocate adequate funds to health expenditures. In addition, the support from donors appears to be unstable, unpredictable and unsustainable. We found a slight improvement in health outcomes attributable to direct investment in building health centres by the private sector and international organizations. Overall, our findings reveal that the prevention of catastrophic health expenditure is still not sufficiently prioritized by the country, and mostly for the majority of the poorest. Therefore, our work suggests that DRC’s UHC journey has slightly contributed to improve the financial risk protection and health outcomes indicators but much effort should be undertaken.
This paper contributes to the huge debate on the relationship between financial development and the economic growth. The evidence is applied to the CEPGL (Communauté Economique des Pays des Grands Lacs) region. Previous studies have concluded either to the absence of connection between the two spheres, to a unidirectional or bidirectional relationship, or to a differentiated connection depending on the economic status of development of the country. The research design applied in this research has been inspired by the reality of the region by running an Error Correction Model for each country and a fixed effects model on panel data for the whole region. Therefore, we estimated econometric models from a series of macroeconomic data relating to the depth, and the accessibility of the financial system. The data used in this study range from 1976 to 2013. Insights from this study show that the financial system of the region is extremely underdeveloped, a weak connection between the financial and the economic sphere, in addition to an ambivalent sense of causality.
This article investigates the impact of the change in the legal status of a microfinance institution on its social and financial performance. It uses a case study with a strong emphasis on both quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand the stakeholders’ perceived value of transformation. The results from the study reveal that transformation significantly improves the profitability and the efficiency of Sidian Bank, and in addition, improves the quality of its portfolio. However, we found that transformation has altered significantly the social objectives of Sidian Bank by decreasing its breadth and depth of social outreach. Insights from the qualitative approach reveal that the average loan size widely used to proxy mission drift is a biased indicator since clients grow over time and always favor bigger loans. The stakeholders’ perceived value of transformation differs in terms of risks, breadth, and financial results.
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