Stakeholders in the health sector have called on the federal government to prioritise health by implementing the 15 percent budgetary allocation commitment in 2001.
The African heads of states and governments under the African Union (AU) made a commitment in Abuja in April 2001 (Abuja Declaration) to dedicate at least 15 percent of their annual budgets to the health sector.
However, 21 years after, Nigeria is still far from fulfilling this commitment as the country’s budget for health has remained consistently between 2.0 and 6.0 percent.
The stakeholders, who spoke at the induction ceremony of the West African Institute of Public Health, supported by the Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health at Scale, anchored by the Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) in Abuja, said the 2023 proposed budget for health is a lot but it’s still not enough considering the country’s population.
They, therefore, urged the federal government not to cut the 2023 budget for health, saying cutting it will ruin the country’s chances of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The minister of health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, at the event, said the government was looking at leveraging homegrown solutions to solving the country’s healthcare problems while reiterating the government’s commitment to achieving UHC.
The minister, who was represented by the ministry’s director of family health, Dr. Salma Ibrahim, said: “Our commitment still remains to achieve universal Health Coverage (UHC) where every Nigerian will have access to quality healthcare irrespective of where you are, irrespective of gender, religious or tribal affiliations.
“We are very much committed to that and we believe that the resources that we have, even though it is still limited, we are going to maximize it to give us the maximum effect through effective coordination. And also leveraging additional resources in- country, we are looking at how we mobilise homegrown solutions to address our problems in Nigeria.
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