IDS Bulletin: 49.2
Editors: Nelson, E., Bloom, G., and Shankland, A.
Publisher: IDS
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Since the publication of the 2004 World Development Report, a range of different attempts have been made to make the design, prioritisation and delivery of health services more accountable to different stakeholders. However, complex politics and power dynamics can limit or skew people’s abilities to access services or hold them to account, particularly for poor and marginalized people.
In July 2017, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) hosted a workshop in collaboration with Future Health Systems, the Impact Initiative, the Open Society Foundation, Unequal Voices, and Health Systems Global, to develop new thinking and practical approaches to improving accountability relationships and processes in favour of greater health equity.
Read the articles by ESRC-DFID researchers:
- Accountability and Generating Evidence for Global Health: Misoprostol in Nepal - Raj Sharma Jeevan, Rekha Khatri, Ian Harper
- Key Considerations for Accountability and Gender in Health Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries - Linda Waldman, Sally Theobald, Rosemary Morgan
- Reducing Health Inequalities in Brazil’s Universal Health-Care System: Accountability Politics in São Paulo – Vera Schattan Coelho
Multimedia:
For the first time in IDS Bulletin history, themes are explored not only in text but also through multimedia contributions. This expansion into other forms of communication is explicitly aimed at galvanising larger numbers of people in a movement towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the linked agenda of accountability for health equity. The content of this issue reflects the fact that while the desired outcome might be the same – better health for all – accountability strategies are as diverse as the contexts in which they have developed.
Denise Namburete, who leads the Mozambican study of the ESRC-DFID funded project Unequal Voices: The Politics of Accountability for Health Equity in Brazil and Mozambique, and Erica Nelson (IDS), made the following documentary:
Focus projects:

Principal Investigator: Alexander Shankland. Lead Organisation: Institute of Development Studies
Co-investigators: Gerald Bloom; Vera Coelho; Denise Namburete; Hayley Nan MacGregor; Rosemary McGee; Anuradha Joshi




Principal Investigator: Gerald Bloom. Lead Organisation: Institute of Development Studies
Co-investigators: Simon Batchelor; Abbas Bhuiya; Linda Waldman; Nigel Scott; Sabrina Rasheed