Just like most low-income and middle-income countries, Malawi has used health benefits packages (HBPs) to allocate scarce resources to key healthcare interventions with the goal of achieving universal health coverage. However, with no widely accepted method for their development, HBPs often promise more than can be delivered, given available resources. In this peer reviewed article an analytical framework is developed using Malawian data to guide the design of HBPs that can identify the potential value of including and implementing different interventions. It provides a basis for informing meaningful discussions between governments, donors and other stakeholders around the trade-offs implicit in package design. The framework was successfully applied to inform the HBP in Malawi, as a core component of the country’s Health Sector Strategic Plan II 2017–2022.
