USAID/Ethiopia Health Financing Activity | 72066324RFA00012

Opportunity Information: Apply for 72066324RFA00012

The USAID/Ethiopia Health Financing Activity (HFA) is a competitive U.S. government grant opportunity designed to help Ethiopia move closer to Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by strengthening how the country raises, allocates, and protects people from the costs of health care. The core aim is to improve access to equitable, high-quality health services while reducing the risk that families will face catastrophic health expenditures. The activity is explicitly aligned with Ethiopia's national ambition to achieve UHC through a Primary Health Care (PHC) approach by 2035, meaning the work is expected to support the front-line health system where most people seek routine and essential services.

The opportunity builds on Ethiopia's long-running health financing reform agenda, which began in 1998 to address both quality and equity challenges in the health sector. Over time, Ethiopia introduced and expanded several key financing mechanisms, including allowing health facilities to retain and use revenue they generate (revenue retention), establishing fee-waiver systems for people who cannot afford services, standardizing exemptions for specific services, and rolling out health insurance schemes. These reforms are presented as having already contributed to improved service delivery and better financial protection for citizens, and the HFA is meant to deepen and institutionalize these gains rather than start from scratch.

USAID's focus under this award is on strengthening and embedding health care financing functions and systems so they reliably support universal access to quality PHC with fewer financial barriers. In practical terms, that typically implies improving the policies, institutional capacity, management systems, and accountability structures that determine how money flows through the health system, how resources are targeted to priority services and populations, and how risk protection tools like insurance and waivers actually work in day-to-day implementation. The activity is expected to leverage lessons learned from prior USAID-supported initiatives in Ethiopia, especially the five-year Health Financing Improvement Program (HFIP), and to translate those lessons into more durable, government-owned systems.

The expected results emphasize measurable, evidence-based progress in Ethiopia's ability to finance health care in ways that are sufficient (enough resources), equitable (fairly distributed and pro-poor), sustainable (stable over time), and efficient (used well with minimal waste). Success is framed less as short-term outputs and more as demonstrated increases in national capacity to plan, mobilize, allocate, and manage health financing for UHC, while improving financial risk protection so that seeking care does not push households into hardship.

From a funding and administrative perspective, this is a discretionary opportunity from USAID in Ethiopia (USAID/Addis Ababa) and will be awarded as a Cooperative Agreement, indicating substantial involvement by the funder during implementation. The funding opportunity number is 72066324RFA00012, and it is listed under the health activity category with CFDA number 98.001. Applicants are unrestricted, meaning any eligible organization is allowed to apply. USAID expects to make one award, with an award ceiling of $40,000,000. The opportunity was created on 2024-08-12, and the original closing date for applications was 2024-09-17.

• The Ethiopia USAID-Addis Ababa in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "USAID/Ethiopia Health Financing Activity" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 98.001.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-08-12.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-09-17. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $40,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

Apply for 72066324RFA00012

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