Akanni Olayinka Lawanson
This paper, utilized National Health Accounts frame work to profile the health financing situation in S ub- Saharan Africa countries. While Africa accounted fo r less than 0.9 percent of global health spending, the region carried over 43% of global burden of communi cable diseases. Thus financing of healthcare remained a core issue to most African countries. Th e highest burden of healthcare financing is shouldered by households, which accounted for betwe en 72% and 99% of private sources. The public and external sources accounted for around 33% and 3 0% of total health expenditure, respectively. With high poverty incidence in the continent, households are easily exposed to catastrophic spending risk. Health financing reforms that emphasis pooling mech anism, especially social health insurance is therefore required. Deviance to the Alma Alta Decla ration, which laid precedence on preventive healthcare, curative healthcare generally, dominate d the allocation of healthcare resources. This has implication on the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery in African countries. Public fa cilities played a dominant role in the provision of healthca re, which is arguably supported by the need to achieve greater equity in healthcare delivery. Howe ver, with the growing wave of public-private- partnership initiatives, it may be intuitively wise and efficient to increase private participation in healthcare provision.
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