Who are we?

HERA's main areas of expertise are in the fields of health economics; health system and health project planning, financing, management and evaluation; pharmaceutical sector development; epidemiology and health management information; and operational research.

HERA is a leading agency in the field of health systems development, management, and financing, and has over the past 18 years successfully undertaken studies, implemented projects and provided professional advise in over 70 countries.

HERA has participated or is presently involved in health sector reform studies or support to national authorities in reform processes in many countries worldwide, including in Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Caribbean and the Pacific. This includes sector support and sector-wide approach (SWAp) in Africa, Asia and the Pacific; pharmaceutical reforms in Europe and Africa; budget support in the Mediterranean, Africa and Asia; health insurance reforms in Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia, Africa and the Pacific.

HERA has developed specific expertise in evaluation, and carried out many sector and programme evaluations. Specifically, HERA developed health sector evaluation tools for sector support programmes (now being used by the EC); reviewed evaluation methodologies used by development agencies; carried out global thematic evaluations (e.g. Global evaluation of the HIV/AIDS programme of the EC, thematic global evaluation of the Belgian development aid to health, global evaluation of the Danish funded health research, thematic evaluation of UNFPA's experience in increasing aid effectiveness through participation in SWAps, EC/ACP/WHO partnership in health MDGs).

Institutional assessments and support is another domain where HERA has developed substantial experience. Examples are institutional system or organisational audits, analysing, planning and providing technical support to institutional reforms.

HERA has also developed specific tools, such as costing methodology and cost-effectiveness analysis for blood transfusion services; costing tools for all aspects of health care, essential health care packages and health systems; evaluation tools for assessing health sector performance.