Importance of Projects for Public Health Institutes in Transitional Countries: Case of the Public Health Institute of Republika Srpska

Like many public healthcare facilities in South-Eastern Europe, the Public Health Institute of Republika Srpska (PHI RS) has recently faced the problem of irregular inflow of funds from the state budget and health insurance fund and had to seek for additional sources of funding. The objective of this paper is to assess the importance of projects for operation of the public health institutes in transitional countries where multiple donors are active, based on the PHI RS’s case. The RS PHI has recently assumed five different roles during projects. In the role of the final project beneficiary, the RS PHI was one of the target organizations who were to benefit from premises renovation, equipment delivery, strengthening of staff capacities, exchange of experience and practices through study visits, improvement of legal environment or advancing its position in the health system. As the project partner, the PHI RS has used its unique position in the health system to attract project funding. The PHI RS has as contractor provided its services under different projects. Occasionally, the PHI RS has been the resource center that provided experts needed for implementation of the projects. It promoted the PHI RS’s expertise and helped the PHI RS to retain and reward its most qualified staff. Potentially the most beneficial role for the PHI RS is the one of the main applicant for projects. All other roles have supported building of the PHI RS’s capacity to take the role of the lead applicant in different types of projects. In transitional countries where donors do not pool their funds, the public health institutes have a chance to exploit availability of multiple sources of financing and to benefit from parallel participation in different projects.