Study raises questions about measurement of 'additionality,'or maintaining domestic health spending amid foreign donations.

Donor nations and philanthropic organizations increasingly require that funds provided for a specific health priority such as HIV should supplement domestic spending on that priority-a concept known as "additionality." We investigated the "additionality" concept using data from Honduras, Rwanda, and Thailand, and we found that the three countries increased funding for HIV in response to increased donor funding. In contrast, the study revealed that donors, faced with increased Global Fund resources for HIV in certain countries, tended to decrease their funding for HIV or shift funds for use in non-HIV health areas. More broadly, we found many problems in the measurement and interpretation of additionality. These findings suggest that it would be preferable for donors and countries to agree on how best to use available domestic and external funds to improve population health, and to develop better means of tracking outcomes, than to try to develop more sophisticated methods to track additionality.