Too much of a good thing: Is HIV/AIDS funding strengthening African Health Systems?

Presenter: Karen Grepin, Harvard University

Abstract

International donors have increasingly committed to provide development assistance to support HIV/AIDS programs, however, concerns have been raised about the impact of these resource flows on health systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Using disaggregated data on health development assistance and multiple country and individual level measures of heath service coverage, I analyze the effect of HIV/AIDS funding on the delivery of non-targeted health services in sub-Saharan Africa from 1995-2006.  I find evidence that in the short-run funding for HIV/AIDS is associated with lower coverage of health services, in particular immunizations, and that this effect is the strongest in countries with the lowest density of doctors per capita. These findings support the view that HIV/AIDS programs have not strengthened health systems and may have had unintended effects on non-targeted health services in sub-Saharan Africa.