Donor-funded procurement effectiveness in the public health medical laboratory services: Examining the moderation role for government policy in donor-support

Abstract

The paper seeks to provide evidence on the government policy’s moderating role in donor-funded procurement in the laboratory services of Zimbabwe. Procurement is a key component for any organisation to function optimally and the medical laboratory service is no exception considering that the donors are the major funders of the department hence the need for this study to examine the government policy as the moderating variable for this research. Medical laboratory services plays a very important role in the functioning of any health sector as every disease have to be tested to ascertain the actual disease a person suffering from before any treatment can be commenced. The aim of the paper was to examine the moderating role of government policy on donor-funded procurement in Zimbabwe’s laboratory services. This study only focused on donor-funded procurement in the laboratory services of Zimbabwe. The paper made use of a quantitative method research method. Data was collected from 214 respondents from the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Zimbabwe. The study found out that government policy (GP) moderates the pre-donation preparation process (PDPP) (β=0.15, p-value = 0.038) donation requirement process (DRP) (β=0.24, p-value =0.000), donation recipient planning process (DRPP) (β=0.22, p-value = 0.001) and donation implementation process (DIP) (β=0.18, p-value = 0.004) and the effectiveness of donor-funded procurement. Based on the results, the study concluded that government policy has a role to play to support donor-funded procurement in the laboratory services in Zimbabwe and the world over. This study is the first of its kind focusing on how donor-funded procurement can be improved in support of the key health outcomes such as laboratory services.