Poor nations are turning to innovative finance mechanisms to get more value out of outlays in health care aimed at scaling up access, quality, and equity for the world’s poorest people.

Estimates from Oxfam International report that more than 100 million people are pushed into poverty each year, often because of high out of pocket payments for health services.

It is in the face of these pressing challenges that researchers have come up with health equity funds, a purchasing mechanism that uses both donor and government subsidies pooled at district level to purchase public health services for the poor, heard delegates at the annual global forum for health research in Havana.

Peter Annear, senior research fellow at the Nossal Institute for …