Kenya made history on Monday 26th June 2023 by becoming the first East African country and the third in Africa to host the National High-Level dialogue on health. Over 500 delegates from across the region converged for the 3-day conference to address pressing issues on domestic resource mobilization for sustainable health financing. The dialogue comes against the backdrop of the collective commitment made by Africa's heads of state in the Abuja meeting in 2001 and the 2019 Africa Leadership Meeting to increase health budget allocation and ensure prudent use of health resources.
During the official opening, the Prime Cabinet Secretary Hon. Musalia Mudavadi, on behalf of President William Ruto, emphasized the government's commitment to increasing domestic funding for health noting the need to raise more revenue by strengthening the tax systems, ensuring fair and equitable tax laws.
“The government remains committed to investing in digitization to improve efficiencies and generate necessary revenue for allocation to priority sectors including healthcare infrastructure, essential medicines and equipment, and skilled healthcare professionals,” added the CS.
Council of Governors (CoG) Chair H.E Anne Waiguru reiterated the County Governments’ willingness to work with the National Government to implement the President’s health agenda. Currently, Counties invest about 30% of their total budgets in health - evidence of their commitment to the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
“County Governments are steadfast to providing the highest quality of health services and maximizing opportunities for disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and care. In partnership with the National Government, we hope to ensure that flow of funds to public health facilities is timely, predictable and reliable to better meet the health needs of the populations they serve,” said Governor Waiguru.
“I commend County Governments for their continuous efforts of ensuring that there is increased County budget allocations in the health sector from 13.5% to 28.2% between 2013 and 2022, reflecting their dedication to prioritizing healthcare,” noted the health Cabinet Secretary Ms. Susan Nakhumicha.
The National dialogue on health financing comes days after the high-level engagement between the Ministry of Health and County Governments which saw County Governments sign Intergovernmental Partnerships Agreements (IPAs) to facilitate the implementation of the National Equipment Support to Counties (NESC), formerly known as Managed Equipment Services.
The forum, held on 14th June 2023, deliberated on matters domestic resource mobilization, emerging issues in the health sector including Community Health Promoters (CHPs), Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and Universal Health Coverage, social protection and unbundling of functions.
County Governments and the Ministry of Health resolved to strengthen intergovernmental collaboration to address key sector issues in health and social protection. In this regard, it was resolved among others that: a joint facility assessment to be undertaken across the Country to inform the number of primary networks to be established; CoG to sensitize the 20 County Assemblies who are yet to pass the model Facility Improvement Financing Bill developed by the CoG, Ministry of Health and Health policy stakeholders, to fast-track the passage of the Bill in the next 2 months and; a technical team comprising of the CoG, State Department of Social Protection, UNICEF, WFP and sector partners to establish a framework to institutionalize Social Protection programmes at the County Level.