Strategies for health financing in Kenya--the difficult birth of a new policy.

The Kenyan Government has recently introduced a new strategy for health financing. The roles of the World Bank and US-AID in developing this strategy are reviewed in this article. Particular attention is paid to the fact that the government--under heavy pressure from the World Bank-partly had to accept a strategy generating less revenue and greater inequities than alternative strategies considered. At the same time the policy options assessed illustrate how the Kenyan Government managed to avoid public health services being transformed into semi private services primarily for middle and high income groups.