A Perspective on Aid Coordination in the Health Sector: A Case Study on Development Aid in Myanmar

Abstract

The proliferation of development aid during the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) period accelerated the discussions on aid effectiveness at the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in the 2000s. With the increase of development partners, including non-DAC member states and non-state actors, the norms developed for aid effectiveness, which tended to focus on the modes of development aid, were reviewed at the Busan High Level Forum in 2011, where “development effectiveness,” a broader concept inclusive of various partners, was recognized.

This research attempts to identify issues and future directions related to aid coordination in Myan-mar's health sector in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) era, which focuses on the concept of equity, a goal closely relevant to policies of developing countries. The findings are as follows.

The weight of development aid for health is likely to shift to policy-focused programs from target-ori-ented programs. This is because of the difference between the concept of MDGs and that of SDGs: the achievement of universal health coverage, a health target of SDGs, is more closely related to policy changes of developing countries in terms of mobilizing domestic resources, reforming regulatory frameworks, and so on.

To this date, although Myanmar's Health Sector Coordination Committee (M-HSCC) has enabled coordination among various partners to a certain extent, it needs to reflect the changes of such situations. Involvement of development partners in the process of policy discussions should effectively increase the level of aid alignment with national development plans, and knowledge sharing by development partners for health policies with regard to health financing and regulatory reforms should be coordinated so as to offer the best policy options for Myanmar's health sector.