CSO question government commitment on 15% budget for health

Civil society organisations have called on the government to keep promises made 12 years ago to increase health spending to 15% of their national budgets.This comes hours before African heads of state meet Monday in Nigeria’s capital for the Abuja+12 Summit.Nigeria hosts the summit, and “yet it has not kept its promises,” according to MamaYe, a campaign for improved maternal and newborn health in sub-Saharan Africa, run by a nongovernment organisation, Evidence for Action (E4A).Data suggest Ghana is much closer to keeping its promise on the Abuja Declaration after pushing up health spending to 12%, compared with 5.6% in Nigeria this year.The group called on President Goodluck to “explain which significant results Nigeria has achieved” since 2001 when Abuja Declaration was made.MamaYe Nigeria insists an increased health budget could mean spending an additional $51 per person and could reduce the percentage of health spending financed by households without insurance by as much as 16 percentage points.It also says more budget for health could help Nigeria achieve its millennium development goal to reduce deaths among children aged under give.The goal is to keep the deaths less than 71 per 1,000 live births, using better health services.“Many more mothers and babies could be saved in our country if they had access to quality health services,” said Dr Tunde Segun, country director, E4A.“Somewhere in Nigeria more than 108 women die every day from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Too many babies die, we lose 240,000 newborns each year. This amounts to one newborn death every 2 minutes. It does not have to be this way.“Ensuring our health facilities are safe for our mothers and babies requires more funds be allocated to maternal and newborn health, and this in turn will encourage increased use of these facilities,” he further said.By Judd-Leonard OkaforSuccint, downloadable evidence on health financing in Nigeria is available here.