Sustainable financing for SA School Health Programme

The Integrated School Health Programme (ISHP) in South Africa has underperformed for many years. It has been characterised by, inter alia, insufficient and inequitable distribution of resources, and an inability to respond to a variety of youth health needs across different school phases and different geographies.

The German Development Co-operation (GIZ), through its participation in the South African-German Multisectoral HIV Prevention Programme, appointed Genesis Analytics to support the South African government in strengthening the costing, budgeting and financing arrangements for the ISHP and in mobilising additional financial resources for the effective delivery of the ISHP.

This assignment requires collaborative planning and decision making between the National Treasury, the Departments of Health, Basic Education, and Social Development as well as development partners that support HIV prevention and youth health services.

Genesis will support the multi-sector role players in finalising service delivery models and implementation plans at a sub-national level for a five-year period before developing a cost and budget impact model for the roll out of the optimised programme.

Genesis will then support the department of health in submitting a budget bid to National Treasury and related negotiations on the financing mechanisms and funding mix for the ISHP. Furthermore, it will support the South African government in preparing a budget bid for inclusion in the national funding request to the Global Fund, due for submission towards the middle of 2021.