Kenya will from Monday host the first-ever summit on high-level national dialogue on health financing.
The three days summit brings together various stakeholders in the health sector including the Ministry of Health, the Council of Governors, representatives from the African Union, EAC ministers, Global Fund, Gates Foundation, USAID and UNAIDS among others.
The summit aims to align stakeholders towards achieving sustainable and effective financing for healthcare in accordance with national and regional commitments.
Kenya will become the third country in Africa and the first in East Africa to convene such a dialogue which previously was held in Malawi and Zambia.
As part of the implementation of the Africa leadership meeting the AU has given the mandate to regional economic communities to support member states in holding national health financing dialogues.
The national dialogue, according to the ministry, plays a vital role as an enabler in allowing Kenya to meet her domestic health financing commitments.
According to Health CS Susan Wafula, such financing dialogues serve as platforms to discuss, build consensus and identify ways to support domestic health financing priorities by bringing together important national and international stakeholders.
“The government has recognised the importance of investing in health evidenced by the gradual increase in contribution to the financing of healthcare services over the past 10 years,” Wafula said.
“We are not yet there, the Abuja declaration was 15 per cent, we are way below that so we must work together to ensure that we get to 15 per cent,” she added.
The East African Community is the regional economic community responsible for supporting the government of Kenya in implementing the Africa leadership meeting agenda including the national health financing dialogues.
The dialogue will be important for Kenya to identify priority areas to improve on how it can achieve targets set within the health financing strategy.
During the dialogue, experts will present research findings on Kenya’s health financing system and this will help policymakers to discuss the strategies to address the challenges that the country faces.
