Financial and Other Rewards for Good Performance or Results: A Guided Tour of Concepts and Terms and a Glossary of RBF *Updated March 2011 (long glossary)

Results-Based Financing (RBF) has been defined as "a cash payment or non-monetary transfer made to a national or subnational government, manager, provider, payer or consumer of health services after predefined results have been attained and verified. Payment is conditional on measurable actions being undertaken." (www.rbfhealth.org). RBF is an umbrella term because the definition is general and characterizes various programs in many countries. Different labels exist for essentially the same concept or are associated with different incentives and payment arrangements.

This essay and glossary describe how different terms are used and points out significant distinctions among types of RBF programs and includes information on:

Getting away from paying for inputs
Paying for (some definition of) results
Defining incentives and whom they affect
Incentives for program beneficiaries
Concepts and their relations
A simple glossary of terms

See the short version of this essay: Rewards for Good Performance or Results: A Short Glossary of RBF

This glossary was revised in March 2011, after its presentation and discussion at The World Bank.