Assessment of the Effectiveness and Efficiency Rwandan Health Care System: An Econometric Approach to Stochastic Frontier

The Rwandan health care system, which was considered one of the weakest in the world in the year 2000, is now recognized as a system that has made spectacular progress. In comparison with regional health care systems, this article employs an evaluative approach focused on effectiveness in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and technical efficiency in improving healthy life expectancy. To this end, data from databases maintained by institutions such as the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, government ministries, and others were collected and analyzed. The stochastic frontier method, Data Envelopment Analysis, and Ordinary Least Squares were used to study technical efficiency. The results show that, thanks to favorable governance, the Bismarckian-inspired Rwandan health care system has experienced a significantly faster improvement in technical efficiency and effectiveness and has made considerable efforts toward achieving the MDGs during this period.