12.2% proposed health allocation gets praise
The proposed K729.47 billion health sector allocation in the national budget has excited stakeholders though it has fallen short of the Abuja Declaration target.
The allocation represents12.2 percent of the K5.9 trillion National Budget.
If approved, the country will again miss the Abuja Declaration which entails that African countries must allocate at least 15 percent of the total budget to the health sector.
But Malawi Health Equity Network executive director George Jobe described the allocation as landmark
Jobe said: “We have been lobbying for 15 percent and the 12.2 percent is closer, which gives us the confidence and hope that we are moving towards this target.”
He observed that the inclusion of numerous projects in the forthcoming fiscal year, such as the cancer centre completion, is commendable.
In his 2024/25 National Budget presentation in Parliament on Friday, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Simplex Chithyola Banda said priority projects include construction of Dowa and Rumphi district hospitals, Chikwawa District Hospital feasibility study, Malawi Emergency Project implementation to protect essential health services and the Malawi Covid-19 Emergency Response and Health Systems Strengthening Project.
Health and Rights Education Programme executive director Maziko Matemba on Friday described the proposed allocation as a great improvement.
He said it will improve service delivery.
Physicians Associates’ Union of Malawi president Solomon Chomba said government has demonstrated commitment to achieve quality universal health coverage as envisioned in our Malawi 2063 [MW2063].
In the 2023/24 financial year, the health sector’s K330 billion allocation represented 8.5 percent of the national budget while in the 2022/23 fiscal year, K283.57 billion allocation represented 10 percent of the financial blueprint.
But in both 2021/22 and 2020/21 financial years, the separate health sector allocations represented 9.4 percent of the national budget.
K187 billion was allocated in 2021/22 fiscal year while K101 billion was allocated in 2020/21.
