Scale, channels, regions and fields of China's development assistance for health from 2000 to 2021: a published data- and documents-based analysis

Abstract

ObjectiveTo examine the scale, channels, regions and fields of China's development assistance for health (DAH) from 2000 through 2021 for the integration into global health governance. MethodThe data of the analysis were extracted mainly from the Development Assistance for Health Database 1990 – 2021 published by Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and supplementary from China's Foreign Aid (2014). SPSS Statistics 26.0 was used in descriptive statistics analysis. ResultsChina's DAH increased from 284 million US dollars in 2000 to 1.592 billion US dollars in 2021, with an increase of 460.56%. Of all the DAH, 93.90% were channeled through bilateral agencies, but the proportions of the DAH channeled through government and social capital cooperation, development banks and United Nations agencies went up continuously during the period. The majority (58.59%) of the recipient countries of China's DAH were in sub-Saharan Africa. In terms of health focus area, 92.90% of the China's DAH was applied in strengthening of health systems of the recipient countries. ConclusionDuring the period from 2000 to 2021, China's DAH increased with diversified channels of disbursement and the DAH were mainly for strengthening of health systems of the recipient countries.

Keywords

• global health governance
• health assistance
• health cooperation
• china