FG, CSOs Partner On Health Budget Process Reforms

Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in collaboration with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Results for Development (R4D) is set to spearhead health budget process reforms in Kaduna, Kano, and Lagos states.

This was disclosed yesterday at a retreat on Health Budget Process Reforms, organised by Results For Change (R4D), in Abuja.

The collaboration aims to extend the strategic and effective budgeting practices implemented by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare over the last five years to enhance healthcare outcomes at the sub-national level.

Speaking at the retreat, the permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Daju Kachollom, said, “Having made significant progress in its budget process reforms over the last 5 years, the ministry felt it was time to support states in achieving the same.

“Cascading the gains of budget process reform at the sub-national level can greatly improve strategic budgeting and budget performance in Nigeria’s health sector, which will lead to better health outcomes,” the permanent secretary said.

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Kachollom also stated that although the cascading of reform process is commencing in three states,  there are plans to onboard more states in the coming years.

On her part, programme manager, Result For Development (R4D), Oluwafeyikemi Adeniyi, who spoke on behalf of the country manager, Felix Obi, said, “There’s a mock budget that we develop and that usually informs the health budget of the federal government.”

“So, what we want to do now is to also pilot this collaborative mechanism at the state level. The plan is to bring in the stakeholders of the states so that we can now show them how it was done at the federal level and how they can do it at the states,” she said.

Adeniyi also stated that it is not enough to stop at the level of plans informing the health budget, but also there’s the need to start tracking the performance of budget.

“We want to cascade this alignment to the states, and then at the federal and states level, we will then begin to track the performance of our budget,” Adeniyi added.