Health Service Delivery

A midwife conducts a rapid diagnostic test for malaria on an infant in Ghana. Photo credit: URC

Health Service Delivery

Strengthening health service delivery is crucial to the achievement of universal health coverage and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 3: to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being at all ages. Improving health service delivery has been URC’s core mission for more than 40 years, enabling the delivery of people-centered, quality care and making services accountable, affordable, accessible, and reliable.

We support governments to lead and efficiently manage their systems and resources – including competent, adequately supported, motivated, and equitably distributed health care workers – to deliver quality health services.

We strengthen the capacity of leaders and managers to plan, deliver, evaluate, and continuously improve quality services. We engage and empower people, families, and communities to make full use quality health services and demand people-centered care. 

Respectful people-centered care

“URC bridges the divide between national policymaking and local action by transforming existing human resources for health at the community, facility, district, and regional levels into proponents, managers, and providers of respectful, people-centered care.  We support the achievement of country-owned and sustainable outcomes by working within existing systems, public and private structures, and communities.”
Dr. Augustin Muhwezi
Chief of Party, USAID Uganda Health Activity

URC’s work to strengthen health systems and improve health care and health outcomes globally focuses on improving both the quality and reach of health services. Current projects with a significant health service delivery component include:

Building on the achievements of the USAID Regional Health Integration to Enhance Services in Northern Uganda Activity (RHITES-N, Acholi) Activity and the USAID Regional Health Integration to Enhance Service in East Central Uganda Activity (RHITES-EC), URC leads the USAID Uganda Health Activity (USAID UHA) which will accelerate inclusive access to respectful, people-centered care for Ugandan families, propel the country across the finish line for sustainable HIV epidemic control, and ensure that family health and HIV interventions and outcomes are anchored in strong local health systems that use data to drive results and efficiently manage human, institutional, and financial resources.

USAID UHA supports governance and health systems strengthening interventions across 67 health districts and five cities in seven diverse sub-regions of Uganda, working to ensure that local health service delivery networks improve their performance and management systems to equitably deliver cost-effective, high-quality health services.

In Ghana, URC leads the implementation of the USAID Quality Services for Health Activity (Q4H), which supports the Ghana government’s leadership to promote and oversee improved quality health services across the public and private health sectors at the national, regional, district, sub-district, and facility levels.

In Jordan, URC also leads the USAID Health Services Quality Accelerator Activity. This Activity strengthens Jordan’s Ministry of Health leadership and governance capacity to address areas of weak performance and improve quality of care to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health outcomes.

In the Philippines, limited access to health facilities and providers has adversely impacted population health in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. URC supports the Ministry of Health in this region to achieve a self-reliant health system under the USAID Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for Health (BARMMHealth) Project by strengthening the capacity of the government, civil society, and communities to develop, implement, and finance solutions to improve health. The project works to change social norms and encourage healthy behaviors among underserved adolescents, youth, women, and men; strengthen the quality of family planning and maternal and child health services; and bolster public health policies and systems.