NIP: this refers to total spending or financing of the National Immunization Programme (NIP) in its entirety. The NIP aggregate will include all spending on immunization - both spending on routine immunization services and any spending on accelerated disease control initiatives (campaigns and supplemental immunization activities). [NIP = Routine + Campaigns]

Routine: this refers to total spending or financing on routine immunization delivery services. The routine aggregate will include all spending on the delivery of routine immunization services and exclude any spending on accelerated disease control initiatives (campaigns and supplemental immunization activities). [Routine = NIP - Campaigns]

Campaigns: this refers to total spending or financing on supplemental immunization activities. These include all accelerated disease control initiatives (Polio, Measles, etc.) and other vaccination campaigns. By definition, the campaign aggregate will exclude any spending on routine immunization delivery services. [Campaigns = NIP - Routine]

Vaccines: these include the cost of all the vaccines used in the national immunization programme and following the vaccination schedule of the country - traditional vaccines as well as new and underused vaccines. The cost of the vaccines includes the international market value of vaccines as well as transport and handling costs.

Injection supplies: these include items such as needles, syringes, AD syringes, safety boxes and other injection supplies. The cost of the injections supplies includes the international market value of injection equipment as well as transport and handling costs.

Personnel: includes the salary and benefits of full-time personnel involved with the organization and delivery of immunization activities and should be recorded at the central, provincial and district levels. Personnel costs should include per-diems and other incentives for service delivery and outreach levels (vaccinators and mobile teams).

Transport: includes the expenditures related to the operations and maintenance of vehicles for the delivery of vaccines, supplies and immunization services. Maintenance and overhead: includes the maintenance costs of cold chain equipment and building overhead costs (electricity, etc.).

Training: includes short-term in-service training for immunization activities for any type of health staff involved, and that occur on a regular basis (training for new vaccine introduction, injection safety, logistics, vaccine management, etc.).

Social mobilization/IEC: includes spending on social mobilization activities and materials for information, education and communication about the benefits of immunization (IEC). Disease surveillance and monitoring: includes spending on disease surveillance and monitoring activities of the national immunization programme.

Other recurrent costs: includes other recurrent cost categories not elsewhere specified.

Vehicles: includes the annual value of the existing fleet of vehicles used specifically for the national immunization programme. These typically consist of cars, four-wheel drives, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, boats, etc.

Cold chain equipment: includes the annual capital cost of existing and new cold chain equipment specifically for use in the national immunization programme. These typically consist freezers, refrigerators, cold boxes, and vaccine carriers.

Financing Source: A source of financing refers to the agents providing the funds for immunization. Given the difficulties in tracking the exact source of financing, countries are asked to report only the source of financing closest to the end use. Therefore, transfers of bilateral donor agency resources to multilateral agencies (such as WHO or UNICEF), or to a health fund or the national treasuries (through pooled funds or budget support) are not attributed to the donor countries. This is of particular (and growing) significance in countries receiving bilateral aid through sector-wide approach (SWAp) programmes and national budget support. In the immunization financing database, only the last source of funding before they get used by the programme are reported (e.g. if USAID channels their funds for immunization through UNICEF, the funding is considered as UNICEF funds. In other words, UNICEF is the end source).

Government: This source of financing refers to domestic public funding for immunization derived from taxation or other sources of public revenues at the central and/or sub-national levels, and allocated through a formal budgetary process. It can include the non-concessionary portion of a development loan, national budget support and debt relief proceeds.

Bilateral: This source of financing refers to external public funds for immunization from official development assistance. Typically these are funds derived from taxation in donor countries and constitute the grant funding from bilateral international aid agencies.

Foundations: This source of financing refers to external private funds for immunization from foundations.

Multilateral: This source of financing refers to external public grant funding for immunization channeled through multilateral international aid agencies such as UNICEF, WHO and the grant portion of development loans from international and regional development banks (e.g. World Bank or Asian Development Bank).

NGO: This source of financing refers to external private funds for immunization from non-government organizations.

Private Sector: This source of financing refers to domestic private funds for immunization.

Other: This source of financing refers to any other source of funding for immunization not elsewhere specified. It includes the sources of funding that were not specified and for which the source could not be determined.

Specific costs: include the cost of all inputs used specifically for immunization.

Shared costs: include the cost of inputs that are shared among multiple health services. Traditionally, shared costs include those for service delivery personnel, since they often perform multiple duties beyond immunization, making it difficult to separate out the share to be attributed to immunization. The process to separate the shared portion of certain costs is known as cost allocation. Specific methodologies are provided in the recommended FSP costing guidelines. Other shared costs are those associated with transportation and buildings.