Today’s health financing targets are redundant

Author:

Oliver Campbell White

Article Type:

Article Number: 3

National health financing targets need to be revised and more realistic

ABSTRACT Through its Heath Financing Department, the Global Fund promotes and supports efforts to increase governments’ financing for health. As universally agreed, the aim is for countries to achieve sustainable domestic funding for their health systems. In just about every article, talk or speech on the topic of health financing anywhere in Africa reference is made to the Abuja Declaration in 2001 which included a target for government levels of health financing. This article challenges the usefulness of referring to the Abuja Declaration today. Other health financing targets have also emerged since 2001 but these too have largely not been met. This article, which includes some big tables providing interesting country comparisons, argues that comparisons using those targets are unfair and that more emphasis is needed on what financing is needed at national and local levels and that more realistic targets should be set. While this article is about Africa, the principles will apply elsewhere