Costing guidelines for HIV prevention strategies.

Abstract

The principles of these Costing Guidelines are derived from Cost Analysis in Primary Health Care—a training manual for programme managers (hereafter referred to as the ‘PHC Manual’). The manual was produced for programme managers to illustrate how cost analysis might be used to address basic questions about the efficiency equity and sustainability of the health activities for which they were responsible. It was hoped that the use of cost analyses would contribute to decisions about the optimal use of resources within the health sector and within individual programmes. Excerpts taken from the PHC Manual will be referenced as “PHC: page number”. The PHC Manual is one of a number of relevant costing manuals produced over recent years. Much of the guidance it provides is directly applicable to managers of AIDS programmes who want cost analysis to contribute to their own decision-making. The PHC Manual is recommended reading for users of these Costing Guidelines but is not required in order to understand and use these Guidelines. As in the PHC Manual these Guidelines cost projects from the perspective of service providers and not from a social perspective. This should be borne in mind when interpreting the findings of the costing studies. The relevance and clarity of the Guidelines have been tested by costing a sample of prevention projects in several countries. This experience has been fed into the revision of the Guidelines. (excerpt)