Federalisation & Health Systems in Nepal

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The project “The Impact of Federalisation on Nepal’s Health System: A longitudinal Analysis’, funded by the Health Systems Research Initiative, has had a challenging first year as a result of the impact of COVID-19 on both Nepal’s health system and the research team themselves. Launched in April 2021 and involving a large team of researchers from Sheffield, Nepal (the Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences and PHASE Nepal) and the UK (the universities of Huddersfield and Bournemouth), the project is examining the large scale reform process currently underway in Nepal’s health system as a result of the country’s recent shift to a federal system, and the impacts this is having on all aspects of the system including governance, finance, human resources and service delivery. In addition to desk-based work including literature reviewing, obtaining ethical approval, the researchers in Nepal were able to use the ‘gap’ between two virus peaks to do a significant amount of data collection (some online; some in person) at Federal, Provincial and local levels. Work is now underway on analysing this first wave of data.