Using Stakeholder Analysis to Support Moves towards Universal Coverage: Lessons from the SHIELD Project
Loading...
Date
2012
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Abstract
Stakeholder analysis is widely recommended as a tool for gathering insights on
policy actor interests in, positions on, and power to influence, health policy
issues. Such information is recognized to be critical in developing viable health
policy proposals, and is particularly important for new health care financing
proposals that aim to secure universal coverage (UC).
However, there remain surprisingly few published accounts of the use of
stakeholder analysis in health policy development generally, and health
financing specifically, and even fewer that draw lessons from experience about
how to do and how to use such analysis. This paper, therefore, aims to support
those developing or researching UC reforms to think both about how to conduct
stakeholder analysis, and how to use it to support evidence-informed pro-poor
health policy development. It presents practical lessons and ideas drawn from
experience of doing stakeholder analysis around UC reforms in South Africa and
Tanzania, combined with insights from other relevant material. The paper has
two parts. The first presents lessons of experience for conducting a stakeholder
analysis, and the second, ideas about how to use the analysis to support policy
design and the development of actor and broader political management
strategies.
Comparison of experience across South Africa and Tanzania shows that there are
some commonalities concerning which stakeholders have general interests in UC
reform. However, differences in context and in reform proposals generate
differences in the particular interests of stakeholders and their likely positioning
on reform proposals, as well as in their relative balance of power. It is, therefore,
difficult to draw cross-national policy comparisons around these specific issues.
Nonetheless, the paper shows that cross-national policy learning is possible
around the approach to analysis, the factors influencing judgements and the
implications for, and possible approaches to, management of policy processes.
Such learning does not entail generalization about which UC reform package
offers most gain in any setting, but rather about how to manage the reform
process within a particular context.
Description
Keywords
Universal coverage, Insurance reform, Stakeholder analysis, Political management, Political viability
Citation
Gilson, L., Erasmus, E., Borghi, J., Macha, J., Kamuzora, P. and Mtei, G., 2012. Using stakeholder analysis to support moves towards universal coverage: lessons from the SHIELD project. Health policy and planning, 27(suppl 1), pp.i64-i76.