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Delivering effective healthcare to the world’s poorest people is a challenge, all the more so because developing-country governments tend to have meagre health budgets.

But a special report in this week’s The Economist describes how recent research in Tanzania shows that even a small health budget can go a long way, provided that the money is spent with care.

The Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC), together with the Tanzanian health ministry, conducted an experiment in two rural districts in Tanzania. They increased health spending by just US$0.80 per head, and distributed the money to reflect the burden that specific diseases imposed on the local population. The results were striking.

Link to The Economist special report

See also:

IDRC

Photo credit: WHO/TDR/Crump