Leveraging private health providers to achieve Universal Health Coverage. Lessons from the African Health Markets for Equity project

The African Health Markets for Equity (AHME) project, jointly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and implemented by a partnership of organizations led by Marie Stopes International (MSI), worked to address these challenges in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria for the past seven years (see box 1 for a description of the project). The purpose of this brief is to reflect on the project’s implementation to highlight the top lessons as it draws to a close. To achieve this, the brief took stock of the rich body of project snapshots, briefs and reports produced by the partners over the course of the past six years documenting their experience from the field. Through internal discussion, the authors synthesized the top ten take-away messages1. In section 2 below, the authors briefly summarize the vision behind the AHME project and the strategy AHME pursued in each country. In section 3, the authors turn to key insights from the field. Some concluding thoughts are then offered in section 4.