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Recommended Reading

Table of contents Contents Introduction The policy making environment Reviewing stated policies Matching stated policies to field realities Policy contents and allocative patterns Features of strong policy proposals Sustainability of chosen policies Looking at some concrete examples of policy implementation Actors: roles, perceptions, agendas Government (central and peripheral) Rebel groups Transitional (UN) authorities, UN agencies Development banks Donors The European Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) New actors in the humanitarian field, Professional associations Understanding Coordination Recommended Reading References Annex 5a: Establishing a Policy Intelligence Unit Annex 5b: Sector-Wide Approaches in Disrupted Health Sectors

Harmer A and Macrae J. (eds.). Beyond the Continuum. The changing role of aid policy in protracted crises. HPG Report 18. ODI 2004. Available online.

• Valuable review of recent trends in aid policy in protracted crises, discussing the challenges posed to governments and international agencies by fuzzy environments, and the approaches and instruments emerging in response. UN agencies, IFIs and the US are discussed in detail. Essential reading for anybody involved in tracking and/or coordinating aid flows to a conflict-affected country.

Pavignani E. and Durão J. R. Managing external resources in Mozambique: building new aid relationships on shifting sands? Health Policy and Planning. 14(3): 243-253. 1999.

• Reduced version of the original research report, titled “Aid, Change and Second Thoughts: Coordinating External Resources to the Health Sector in Mozambique”. 1997. The evolution of emergency-oriented aid management tools, as the sector moved from a war to peace context, the emergence of new ones, the obstacles met, the enabling factors and the results achieved are covered by the report.

Pfeiffer J. International NGOs and primary health care in Mozambique: the need for a new model of collaboration. Social Science and Medicine. 56; 725-738. 2003.

• A vivid portrait of a Mozambican province immediately after the war, flooded with external resources and overcrowded with NGOs. The experienced reader will easily recognize ‘aid cowboys’, ‘aid mercenaries’, ‘seminaritis’ and other familiar by-products of a doped situation, consistently found in other contexts, like in Kosovo and Afghanistan, when a war-torn environment becomes a favourite intervention field for the international aid industry.

Stoddard A. Humanitarian NGOs: Challenges and Trends. In: Macrae J. and Harmer A. (eds.). Humanitarian Action and the ‘Global War on Terror’: A Review of Trends and Issues. HPG Report 14. July 2003. Available online.

• Excellent updated review of the many natures of humanitarian NGOs, their evolution over time and the dilemmas they face as the humanitarian space is affected by remarkable changes.

Walt G. Health Policy. An introduction to process and power. Zed Books. 1994.

• "Health policy is about process and power… it is concerned with who influences whom in the making of policy, and how that happens." This influential book provides a useful framework for health managers and planners to answer the questions they face in their daily work. Drawing on different disciplines and theories, the book helps the reader to understand the role of actors, political / economic and contextual factors in shaping policies and strategies that directly affect how a particular health system performs. The importance of understanding the processes through which policies are developed and implemented is also discussed. For example, the debate on managed market reforms in both developed and developing countries can be better understood if one takes into account the emergence in the 1990s of the new political economy and of the new public management thinking. Real-life examples illustrate the difficulties and intricacies of analysing the health policy process, at the same time pointing to issues that are relevant in an emergency context, such as the role and influence of international agencies and institutions in the policy arena.

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