The government’s allocation towards family planning services has been reduced in the latest Budget statement presented in Parliament on Thursday.
In the 2023-24 Budget statement, the National Treasury CS Njuguna Ndung’u has allocated Sh1 billion towards procurement of family planning and reproductive health commodities.
This is down by Sh200 million from Sh1.2 billion allocation in the 2022-23 financial year.
In general, the Health Ministry received an allocation of Sh141.2 billion down from Sh146.8 billion in the 2022-23 financial year.
Sh21 billion has been allocated for curative and reproductive health while Sh7.3 billion for preventive and promotive health services.
This is a blow to the family planning programmes in the country that have continued to witness dwindling donor funding.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) created between the Ministry of Health and major development partners in 2019 underscored the need to scale up domestic financing for family planning commodities.
The MoU outlined a plan for the Ministry of Health to fully finance commodities by FY 2025-26, with donor funding declining accordingly.
Deep cuts in donor funding to health programmes have mostly affected family planning, HIV, malaria and TB programmes, which are heavily donor reliant.
This is because donors have been forcing Kenya to foot its health bill by gradually reducing aid. After all, it is now a middle-income country.
Most affected is family planning which the government was expected to almost fully finance from 2022.
However, the ministry last year negotiated with USAID and Bill and Melinda Gates to continue buying contraceptives for Kenya until 2025.
The agreement will see Kenya access FP commodities valued at Sh2.5 billion annually.
“In the initial plan we were to have 100 per cent funding from the government for our family planning commodities but because of the Covid-19 pandemic’s economic impact we have requested to push this to 2025/26, two years forward,” Issak Bashir, the head of Department Family Health at the Ministry said.
Family planning in Kenya is financed largely by donors from the UK, United States and Germany.
Three donors—the UK's Department for International Development, the USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had said the cutbacks will be gradual, until 2025 when the government should fully take over the bill.