This paper outlines changes that have been made in the 2019 version of the Health Equity and Financial Protection Indicators database. On the financial protection side, the changes include an increase in the number of indicators from five to 14; revisions to several previous data points,...

This paper looks at differential progress on the health Millennium Development Goals between the poor and better-off within countries. The findings are based on original analysis of 235 Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, spanning 64 developing countries over...

This paper provides an overview of research on out-of-pocket health expenditures, reviewing the various summary measures and the results of multi-country studies using these measures. The paper presents estimates for 146 countries from all World Bank income groups for all summary measures, along...

The gap between strong political commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and slow progress towards meeting them is often attributed to weak “ownership” by developing country governments. This Working Paper addresses the issue of ownership by analysing the substance of 22...

This paper questions the methodology that is widely used to assess progress in implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a methodology that asks whether the targets are likely to be met. This approach is inappropriate, since the MDGs were neither designed as nor intended to be...