Le financement basé sur la performance au Cameroun : analyse de son émergence, sa mise en œuvre et ses effets sur la disponibilité des médicaments essentiels

Access to essential medicines (EM) is a key element of quality of care in a health system. Accordingly, performance-based financing (PBF) is increasingly attracting the attention of policy makers as a promising intervention to improve health service delivery, including access to essential medicines, in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite the growing interest in PBF research, very few studies have focused on how such a reform has been put on the agenda or how it has been maintained over time, much less how it has influenced access to EMs in low- and middle-income countries. Through an analysis of the PBF program in Cameroon, this thesis aims to advance knowledge by examining the following questions: What explains the emergence of PBF at the level of national health policy and what is the impact of this program on access to EMs? The research design is a case study and the analytical approach is based on a combination of qualitative data, through interviews conducted with key actors of the PBF program in Cameroon, and quantitative data from the impact evaluation of this program. The conceptual perspective is that of policy cycles, the policy transfer framework and intervention research. The results are structured into four scientific articles. Putting the PBF on the agenda in Cameroon was built from reports and events identifying the lack of an appropriate health financing policy as a critical issue that needed to be addressed (article 1). The evolution of political discourse towards greater accountability made it possible to test new mechanisms. A group of political entrepreneurs from the World Bank, through many forms of influence (financial, conceptual, knowledge-based and networked) and building on several ongoing reforms, worked with senior government officials to put the PBF reform on the agenda. International non-governmental organizations were recruited at the beginning of the programme to ensure its rapid implementation. However, this role had to be transferred to national organizations to ensure sustainability, ownership and integration of the PBF intervention into the health system (Article 2). The experience of this transfer shows that the elements for the success of such a process include structured guidelines, joint ownership and planning of the transition by all parties, and post-transition support to new actors. The implementation of the PBF programme influences access to essential medicines through several factors, including greater autonomy of health v facilities, enforced regulation of district medical teams, greater accountability of drug stakeholders and liberalization of the supply system (Article 3). However, the programme had a very limited impact on the availability of EMs (Article 4). The intervention was not associated with any reduction in EM stock-outs, except for family planning (FP), where the reduction was 34% (P = 0.028), with a heterogeneity of effects between regions and urban and rural areas. These poor results were likely the consequence of partial implementation failure, ranging from disruption and discontinuation of services to limited facility autonomy in managing decision‐making and considerable delay in performance payment.

Keyphrases: Performance-based financing, Health financing, Essential drugs, Health policy and systems research, Policy transfer, Theory-based evaluation, Intervention research, Randomized trial, Cameroon