On Monday August 25, 2025, an information and scoping workshop was held in Ouagadougou on the study “Analysis of the main initiatives to optimize the implementation of the free healthcare policy in Burkina Faso”. The workshop, organized by the Direction Générale des Etudes et des Statistiques Sectorielles (DGESS) in collaboration with the Secrétariat Technique pour le Financement de la Santé (ST-RFS) and with technical support from Recherche pour la Santé et le Développement (RESADE), brought together players from the Ministry of Health, technical and financial partners (WHO, UNICEF, CHAI, ThinkWell, HELP, ASMADE), CSOs and players from the private health sector.
Photo credit: RESADE
On Monday August 25, 2025, an information and scoping workshop was held in Ouagadougou on the study “Analysis of the main initiatives to optimize the implementation of the free healthcare policy in Burkina Faso”. The workshop, organized by the Direction Générale des Etudes et des Statistiques Sectorielles (DGESS) in collaboration with the Secrétariat Technique pour le Financement de la Santé (ST-RFS) and with technical support from Recherche pour la Santé et le Développement (RESADE), brought together players from the Ministry of Health, technical and financial partners (WHO, UNICEF, CHAI, ThinkWell, HELP, ASMADE), CSOs and players from the private health sector.
As a reminder, since 2016, Burkina Faso has adopted the policy of free healthcare for women and children under the age of five in order to improve their access to health services. This measure has boosted the use of essential care, but it still faces major challenges such as insufficient funding, drug shortages, governance issues, etc.
To meet these challenges, the Ministry of Health and its partners have adopted some twenty reforms and initiatives focusing on governance, financial management, communication and digitalization. However, little effort has been made to document and evaluate these initiatives to date. It is in this context that RESADE, at the request of the Ministry of Health and with the financial support of the Gates Foundation, has undertaken a rigorous documentation and evaluation of these initiatives to measure their effectiveness and impact, identify their limitations and propose recommendations aimed at strengthening their effective contribution to the performance of the free health care policy.
This workshop was part of a collaborative dynamic between RESADE researchers, Ministry of Health decision-makers and health sector partners, to ensure a choice of relevant research themes or prioritize/classify key initiatives to be evaluated, while guaranteeing the appropriation and use of results by all stakeholders (decision-makers, partners, civil society).
Its main objective was therefore to encourage the various stakeholders to contribute to the implementation of the study and to take ownership of the results. Specifically, this involved :
- Present the study protocol to stakeholders;
- Gather opinions, amendments and orientations from participants to enrich the study implementation process;
- Rank the initiatives to be evaluated according to their relevance to the Ministry of Health,
- Define the next steps in implementing the study ;
- Solicit the support of stakeholders in the implementation of the study and the appropriation of the results and final recommendations of the study.
Under the leadership of the DGESS, the workshop took place in a participative manner, and was marked by a series of presentations (made by RESADE) followed by discussions between the participants. The presentations focused on the various initiatives implemented, to enable all participants to familiarize themselves with them, followed by the study protocol.
Following these presentations and discussions, which enabled the researchers and the Ministry to respond to participants’ questions and concerns, RESADE submitted to participants a prioritization matrix of initiatives (in Excel format) based on 5 weighted dimensions: strategic impact (30%), learning potential (25%), urgency and sensitivity (20%), scaling potential (15%), evaluation feasibility (10%). After some amendments from the participants, the stakeholders agreed to keep an equal weight (20%) for each of the 5 dimensions.
It was then agreed to give RESADE time to consider amendments to the matrix, before sharing it with all participants for completion.
The next steps are as follows:
- Share protocol and presentations with stakeholders (by RESADE, no later than August 26, 2025)
- Update the prioritization matrix and share it with stakeholders (by RESADE, no later than August 28, 2025).
- Return of the matrix completed by the players (no later than September 07, 2025)
- Compile the results of prioritization by stakeholders and send them to the Ministry of Health for consolidation (by RESADE, no later than September 09, 2025).
- Share the final prioritization list validated by the Ministry with the various stakeholders (RESADE and DGESS, date to be defined in conjunction with DGESS).
- Establish the timetable for carrying out the analyses (RESADE, DGESS and ST/RFS, date to be defined).
