Person:
Couffinhal, Agnès

Profile Picture
Author Name Variants
Couffinhal, A.
Fields of Specialization
Degrees
ORCID
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated:December 8, 2025
Biography
Agnès Couffinhal is the Global Program Lead for Health Financing at the World Bank. Agnès Couffinhal is a health system expert with close to 20 years of experience in low-, middle-income as well as OECD countries. Her primary area of expertise is health financing and spans other domains, notably service delivery. At the Bank, she has gained extensive policy dialogue and operational experience in South Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia as well as Africa West and Central. She has also worked at the OECD (2015-19) and for the World Health Organization in Copenhagen. She has a track record of impactful publications on efficiency (wasteful spending in health systems), equity (comparative assessments across countries) and governance. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Paris IX-Dauphine.
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/10986/44049

Filters

2000 - 20191
Browse document type tree
Reset filters

Settings

Statistics
Citations

Publication Search Results

Now showing1 - 1 of 1
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Publication
    Contracting-In Management to Strengthen Publicly Financed Primary Health Services--The Experience of Punjab, Pakistan
    (2009) Loevinsohn, B.; Haq, I. U.; Couffinhal, A.; Pande, A.
    OBJECTIVES: In response to low utilization of primary health services in rural areas, the Government of Punjab contracted with a local non-governmental organization (NGO) to manage the basic health units in one district. METHODS: To evaluate the performance of the contractor, health facility surveys, household surveys, and routinely collected information were used to compare the experimental district (Rahim Yar Khan, RYK) with a contiguous and equally poor district (Bahawalpur, BWP). RESULTS: The evaluation found that contracting led to more than a 50% increase in out-patient visits in RYK compared to BWP. There was also increased satisfaction of the community with health services. Technical quality of care was equally poor in both districts and contracting also had little effect on the coverage of preventive services. The latter was likely the result of the NGO not being given managerial responsibility over vaccinators and other community health workers. CONCLUSIONS: Despite methodological limitations, this study found that contracting in management achieved important goals at the same cost to the Government, implying a large increase in efficiency. Contracting in management worked reasonably well in this context and has now been significantly expanded. The approach provides a plausible means for large-scale improvements of poorly performing primary health care systems.