Banyan Global operates seamlessly within four practice areas:
Health threats such as tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS intensify the pressures Ethiopia’s health system faces at a time when resources are scarce. To address these public health priorities, the country’s government has made significant health reforms, including partnering with the private sector–qualified private facilities can now provide screening, counseling, and treatment of TB and HIV/AIDS. Banyan Global supports these reforms by strengthening the sustainability of these services in the private sector.
In 2007 Banyan Global assessed private providers in Ethiopia and determined that many of them needed business training and other support to successfully add these new services to their practices. Some private providers were concerned that the services would cause them to lose money and be a drain on their resources, while others had not considered the cost implications.
To address these concerns Banyan Global designed and implemented a program to improve the viability of private providers. It included training in business and financial management and structuring a health-sector Development Credit Authority (DCA) guarantee with two local banks to support lending to the sector.
Banyan Global conducted a needs assessment to determine how business and operational decisions were made at the clinic level. It designed a training course that presented a practical toolkit on financial analysis, key indicators, and using financial information to manage the practice. The practical nature of the course encouraged clinic owners and managers to integrate simple financial-management procedures into their daily routines. To date 140 private clinic owners and managers and 132 accountants and bookkeepers have been trained. There has been a 32 percent increase in the number of providers using financial statements following the training, and 88 percent of these respondents use this information for decision making and 72 percent for tax reporting. Examples of business decisions made based on financial information include discontinuing a line of service that was underutilized and costing the clinic a monthly equipment rental fee and negotiating referral contracts with other clinics that refer clients for specialty services, such as sonograms.
In addition to training providers, Banyan Global worked with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Ethiopia and USAID’s Office of Development Credit to structure a $10.88 million DCA guarantee with two financial institutions. By sharing risks, USAID encourages financial institutions to lend to the health sector. Private health providers in Ethiopia have difficulty accessing financing, which restricts their ability to expand and improve their practices. Banyan Global also trained financial institutions in Ethiopia about lending to the private health sector to support the utilization of the DCA guarantee.