Decentralization and Public Health in the Philippines

Abstract

Xavier Furtado looks at governance issues in an examination of health care and poverty issues in the developing world. He shows how changes to forms and structures of governance in the developing world can alter the quality of health care services on which the poor depend. Drawing on research and fieldwork conducted in the Philippines, he looks at how efforts to decentralize key social services have been detrimental to the delivery of health care in three moderately poor to very poor municipalities.