Healthier Returns: Making aid for healthcare more effective

Despite pledges to increase health spending, most governments and donors fall short. More effective use of existing health funding is also vital. Meanwhile the current economic climate of fiscal austerity is creating a focus on short-term results that threatens to damage the quality of health aid. Healthier Returns provides recommendations on how to address these challenges. The report: charts the extent to which the core principles of effective aid have been implemented; outlines attempts at reform; highlights successful global and national initiatives; and identifies persistent problems. On the eve of a critical forum on aid effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, this report calls on world leaders to deliver urgently needed reform in six key areas – and make aid for healthcare as effective as possible to save more children’s lives.