Voucher Management Agency

The Voucher Program is run by a Voucher Management Agency (VMA) whose functions include:

1. contracting Voucher Service Providers (VSP),
2. developing and implementing a marketing and distribution strategy for the vouchers to the target population,
3. designing the vouchers,
4. collection and processing of claims (reimbursement of providers),
5. monitoring and supervision of quality of the services provided.

The actual implementing partner for the VMA is the OBA Steering Committee (OSC), whose functions include approval of project implementation plans and budgets. The OBA steering committee itself is supported with qualified Professional Assistance (PA) which in the case of the Kenya project is rendered by IGES (Institute for Health and Social Research, Berlin). Members of OSC come from the National Coordinating Agency for Population & Development (NCAPD), the Kenyan Ministry of Health (MoH) and KfW Banking Group.

In addition, an Advisory Board for the project was constituted by members drawn from various governmental, non-governmental and private organizations. Its main mandate is to provide advice on the implementation process of the project.

In 2005, NCAPD – after a competitive process – contracted PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to implement the project as the VMA. PwC reports to the OSC, which in turn reports to the Advisory Board.

The VMA sub-contracts various organizations to undertake specialized aspects of the project, such as design, marketing and distribution of the vouchers, or developing a monitoring and evaluation system. The National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) was contracted for VSP accreditation and quality assurance.