The health sector has attracted significant foreign aid; however, evidence on the effectiveness of this support is mixed. This paper combines household panel data with geographically referenced subnational foreign aid data to investigate the contribution of health aid to health outcomes in Uganda. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that aid had a strong effect on reducing the productivity burden of disease indicated by days of productivity lost due to illness but was less effective in reducing disease prevalence. Consequently, health aid appeared to primarily quicken recovery times rather than prevent disease. In addition, we find that health aid was most beneficial to individuals who lived closest to aid projects. Apart from the impact of aid, we find that aid tended to not be targeted to localities with the worse socioeconomic conditions. Overall, the results highlight the importance of allocating aid close to subnational areas with greater need to enhance aid effectiveness.

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Aim Substantial progress has been made towards the 90–90–90 global targets; however, the pace at which new infections are declining remains undesirable to meet the UNAIDS 2020 global targets of below 500,000 new infections annually. We discussed the possibility of continued HIV incidence amidst remarkable scores in the 90–90–90 global targets. Subject and methods A game theory simulation was used to explain micro-level sexual interactions in situations of imperfect information on each partner’s HIV status. A non-cooperative sex game tree was constructed following the Harsanyi transformation in two scenarios; scenario one: a player assigns higher subjective probability that the partner is HIV negative; and in scenario two: a player assigns higher subjective probability that the partner is HIV positive. Subjective expected utilities were computed using hypothetical payoffs. Results Accepting unprotected sex is a pure strategy for both players in scenario 1. Player2 is likely to acquire HIV/AIDS. Accepting protected sex is a mixed strategy equilibrium for both players in scenario 2. Player2 is likely to avoid HIV infection. Conclusion Choice for safe or risky sex is a function of subjective probabilities individuals attach to their partners being infected or uninfected. More efforts towards addressing factors affecting individual probability distributions on riskiness of their sexual partners is required, especially for young women in Sub-Saharan Africa.