| The purpose of this qualitative explanatory case study was to assess the influence of ODA on selected health development indicators in Uganda between 2005 and 2013 through a review of development partners' perceptions. Two research questions were used, one being how does Official Development Assistance contribute to improvements in key health indicators in Uganda? The key health indicators reviewed in this study are (a) under 5-year-old mortality rates, (b) infant mortality rates, and (c) maternal mortality ratio. A purposive sampling method was used to select 20 development partners to be interviewed with open-ended questioning. The results of this study showed slow progress on infant mortality and under-five mortality rate, and almost no progress on the maternal mortality ratio despite the disbursement of a yearly average of nearly USD $400 million ODA the last 7 years to the health sector in Uganda. The results of the study revealed six bottlenecks to ODA's influence of health indicators: (a) the poor governance and accountability framework in the country, (b) the ineffective supply chain of health commodities, (c) negative cultural beliefs, (d) insufficient government funding to health care, (e) insufficient alignment of ODA to the national development plan, and (f) noncompliance with the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness. |
