An additional N790.5 billion is required to meet the Abuja health declaration, which prescribes that 15 percent of all national budgets in Africa should be devoted to the health sector.
Esther Agbon, health financing and advocacy advisor, in her presentation analysing Nigeria’s 2017 Health Budget at a conference organised by Mamaye, a non-governmental organisation working to improve access to health for women and children, stated this.
“An analysis of Nigeria’s 2017 budget estimates shows it needs an additional N790.5 billion to meet the Abuja health declaration,” Agbon said.
Nigeria’s 2017 budget proposes to spend N7.2 trillion of which only 4 percent or N304.2 billion was devoted to the health sector. 83 percent – N304 billion budget proposal has been earmarked for current health expenditure while 17 percent will go to capital expenses.
Meanwhile in April 2001, the African Union countries met and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15 percent of their annual budget to improve the health sector and urged donor countries to scale up support, this came to be known as the Abuja declaration because it was agreed in Nigeria’s capital city.
A World Health Organisation report on commitment of African countries to the proposal after 10 years of its enactment reported that 26 countries had increased the proportion of government expenditure allocated to health and 11 had reduced it.
In the remaining nine countries there was no obvious trend up or down however current donor spending varied dramatically.
Toyin Saraki, wife Senate president, who delivered the keynote address at the event, said she was happy that Mamaye had become a common rally point for all sector operators, saying, “We can work more together to strengthen our health system and reach our health budget goal.”
Her husband and some of his colleagues are however proposing to ramp up the budget to the sector to 15 percent though it remains unclear how it will be achieved, seeing that the 2017 budget is lower than 2016 budget in nominal terms.
Oladapo Alabi Ladipo, president of Association for Reproductive & Family Health, who chaired Mamaye panel discussion on Making Health Budget Work in Nigeria, said there had to be a national effort to spend prudently and be accountable in health spending.
Successive Nigerian governments have failed to prioritise health, and government officials and private citizens who can afford travel abroad on medical tourism that constitutes a huge drain on scarce foreign exchange.
Experts say Nigeria spends about N500 billion annually on medical tourism abroad and countries like India, United States and United Kingdom serve as prime destinations.
