Events

Health is seen as crucial for sustainable development, both globally and in Africa. There is growing pressure on governments to allocate sufficient resources to health and use their health budgets effectively. 

Kenya considers health critical to its socioeconomic development as evidenced by the global, regional and national commitments that the country has made towards universal health coverage and financing for health. These include the commitment to achieving 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030; ratifying the Abuja Declaration to allocate 15% of the government’s budget to health; and the Africa Leadership Meeting (ALM) Declaration to increase investments in health, improve the impact of spending, and ensure the achievement of UHC. 

The country has made significant political and policy progress towards health investment. However, an analysis of the proportion of Kenya’s government budget allocation by sector for the fiscal year 2020/21 revealed that the health sector was not among the top five sectors by the level of government investment. The extent to which Kenya leverages domestic health resources from other sectors is also unclear, mainly because of siloed policy development and resource allocation mechanisms.  

Given the social determinants of health and the increasing evidence of how health contributes to other economic outcomes, there is need for concerted efforts to mobilise resources for health from other sectors. Cross-sectoral approaches that have integrated health, environment and livelihoods have provided policy and programmatic lessons for leveraging other sectors’ funding to improve health outcomes.  

Recognising the critical role health financing plays in providing primary health care (PHC) and achieving universal health coverage (UHC), the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) is hosting a policy dialogue in Kenya to discuss how the country can leverage additional domestic resources for health (particularly for PHC, family planning, and reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health) and improve effectiveness and efficiency in the expenditure of health budgets.  

Date: 23rd March 2023 

Time: 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. East Africa Time (EAT) 

Venue: Mercure Nairobi Upper Hill 

Register to participate virtually: https://bit.ly/3lpJDAL  

Read our evidence brief here. 

Read our factsheet here.