Equity of access to primary health services is critical for the most vulnerable and marginalised people in our societies. Despite global efforts to establish universal health care systems, women continue to be among society's most underserved citizens in both poor urban and rural settings. The main barriers may include economic, geographic, cultural, or institutional factors. Monitoring access inequalities to primary health care services is critical in providing policymakers with an evidence-based solutions more equity-oriented policies, programmes, and practices towards improving long and healthy life for all people in the society. The main purpose of the study was to explore what factors influence women’s access to health services provided through government and civil society health programmes. It also examines the evolution of nutritional programs under government and civil society organizations in Bangladesh to provide insights on their design considerations to inform future design, deliver, and access of health care programmes by women in Bangladesh. Findings indicated that only 50% of rural women had access to health programmes. In addition, young and education women with high exposure to public awareness opportunities had more access health programmes. Further, health programme delivered through government and civil society design and delivery mechanisms reached out to more women. The study concludes that understanding women's circumstances and taking institutional design into account for operational effectiveness are crucial for the design and delivery of health services to rural areas, given these challenges. تفاصيل المقالة

Poverty continues to ravage about 10 percent of the world population. Efforts to eradicate poverty in all its forms remain elusive. The historical decline in global poverty rate experienced from 10.1% in 2015 to 8.6% in 2018 and even further down to 8.3% in 2019 reverses to 9.2% in 2019 due to COVID-19 pandemic. Although the poverty rate is projected to decrease to 8.6% in 2022, efforts to lower it further are confounded by the emerging global uncertainties including the Ukraine-Russia war, the global economic crisis, and catastrophes of earthquakes, and adverse effects of climate change. Tackling poverty in a country requires establishing national definitions, setting targets, and undertaking assessments on how the poor access and are satisfied by public services by government and other development actors including civil societies. This requires understanding the socio-economic circumstances of the poor and the factors that influence the ability of service providers to meet the expectations for the poor. This case study examines how rural women are satisfied with the public services provided through civil society programmes within four villages in the northern parts of Bangladesh. It concludes that preconditional public awareness, education, and training coupled with access to financial services can enhance rural women's access to health services. In addition, age, family size, annual income, and farm size are important socio-economic considerations for informing civil society on how to design health services for rural women. Further, civil society needs to improve overall capacity including adequacy of personnel to effectively deliver public services. تفاصيل المقالة