Aid for Albania’s health reform

TIRANA, April 9 – USAID organized a conference last week to announce the start-up of a new health reform project in Albania.
U.S. Ambassador to Albania Alexander Arvizu, Prime Minister Sali Berisha, and Minister of Health Petrit Vasili took part at the conference on the USAID Enabling Equitable Health Reforms (EEHR) project, a five-year initiative that will increase access to essential health services for the poor and support national health policy reforms.
Corruption in Albania’s health sector is one of the primary barriers to fair and equal access to health services. Due to the high incidence of out-of-pocket payments for health services, Albania’s poor are disadvantaged in accessing health services, driving up costs in an already underfunded sector and increasing public health risks.
To reduce corruption and improve governance in the sector, changes must be made at the national and regional policy levels.
Arvizu affirmed U.S. support for the Government of Albania’s efforts to improve sector governance by helping fight corruption in the health sector and encouraged leaders to develop a clear vision and strategy to implement equitable health reforms.
USAID will work with Albania’s health institutions to better define their optimal roles and enact a transparent and well-governed structure for the system; create anti-corrupting codes of conduct; develop and implement transparency and accountability measures; and design corruption-mitigation programs.
In another move, Kseniya Lvovsky, World Bank country manager, has announced that the Bank has offered the country a 25 million euro development policy loan to support social assistance and health services.
This is the first loan to Albania since 2008. The World Bank increased its 2011-2014 programme of support to Albania to 300 million euro to help Albania recover from the floods that hit the country last year. The Bank envoy said that the funds would be used for boosting the storage capacity of the Komani hydropower plant and improving the operation of the dams.