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Afghanistan is one of the most fragile and conflict-affected countries in the world. It has experienced almost uninterrupted conflict for the last thirty years, with the present conflict now lasting over a decade. With no history of a functioning healthcare system, the creation of the Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS) in 2003 was a response to Afghanistan's dire health needs following decades of war. Its objective was to provide a bare minimum of essential health services, which could be scaled up rapidly through contracting mechanisms with Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The central thesis of this article is that, despite the good intentions of the BPHS, not enough has been done to overcome the barriers to accessing its services. This analysis, enabled through a review of the existing literature, identifies and categorises these barriers into the three access dimensions of: acceptability, affordability and availability. As each of these is explored individually, analysis will show the extent to which these barriers to access are a critical issue, consider the underlying reasons for their existence and evaluate the efforts to overcome these barriers. Understanding these barriers and the policies that have been implemented to address them is critical to the future of health system strengthening in Afghanistan.

During the 1987 federal election campaign, the Prime Minister made the pledge that 'by 1990 no child will need to live in poverty'. As a first step towards that goal a family package was announced during the election and spelt out in greater detail in the 1987-88 Budget in September. This report analyses the impact of the family package on children living below the poverty line. The report begins by noting that financial poverty among dependent children has increased from around 6 per cent in the mid-sixties to 20 per cent by the mid-eighties. This corresponds to a rise in the total number of children in poverty from 233 thousand in 1966 to over 800 thousand in 1985-86. International comparisons of the incidence of child poverty at the turn of the decade also show Australia in a very poor light. Using standardised definitions, the incidence of .child poverty in Australia far exceeds that in a number of other industrialised economies with the exception of the United States. The report follows earlier research by using the poverty line developed by the Poverty Commission - the Henderson poverty line - to base its assessment of, the impact of the family package. It is argued that the incidence of poverty - the proportion of the population below the poverty line - is an insensitive measure against which to assess the impact of the family package. This is because poverty incidence only changes when families are moved from below the poverty line to above it. The report discusses an alternative measure, based on the concept of the poverty gap, and applies this to assess the family package. After describing the main elements in the family package, the report discusses the assumptions on which the assessment of its impact is based. In analysing the impact of the family package on child poverty, account is taken of housing costs, using projections derived from the 1981-82 Income and Housing Survey. The results indicate that about 100 thousand of the 540 thousand children in. pensioner and beneficiary families will be ...

AbstractSince the publication of The 1993 World Development Report (WDR), a substantial amount of interest has been generated in the package of essential health services (PEHS) proposed within the Report. This study reviewed 18 package building exercises to answer key questions on feasibility, methods and short‐term benefits of such packaging. It was found possible to design a PEHS in the developing world with methods consuming fewer resources, yet still remain within WDR recommended guidelines. Designing the PEHS produces significant benefits to policy dialogue through the introduction of cost and effectiveness considerations in priority setting, but it is still too early to judge its effect on reallocation of resources and on health status.

ABSTRACTRevenue Management Systems (RMS) are commonly used in the hotel industry to maximize revenues in the short term. The forecasting‐allocation module is a key tactical component of a hotel RMS. Forecasting involves estimating demand for service packages across all stayover nights in a planning horizon. A service package is a unique combination of physical room, amenities, room price, and advance purchase restrictions. Allocation involves parsing the room inventory among these service packages to maximize revenues. Previous research and existing revenue management systems assume the demand for a service package to be independent of which service packages are available for sale. We develop a new forecasting‐allocation approach that explicitly accounts for this dependence. We compare the performance of the new approach against a baseline approach using a realistic hotel RMS simulation. The baseline approach reflects previous research and existing industry practice. The new approach produces an average revenue increase of at least 16% across scenarios that reflect existing industry conditions.