Tracking tool boosts health financing reforms in Africa

Genesis Analytics plays a role in the African Leadership Meeting (ALM) by contributing to the development and testing of the health financing tracker, a tool designed to enhance health financing and accountability across African nations.

The tracker monitors progress against ALM objectives, helping countries to identify critical challenges in the health sector and suggesting avenues for reform.

Genesis supports the piloting of National Health Financing Dialogues, a process that assists countries in enhancing, committing to, and executing reforms within their domestic health financing strategies. Technical assistance is provided to the health secretariats of the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community in the planning and execution of the dialogues.

The ALM represents a collective African-led effort that establishes the political, coordination and technical mechanisms necessary to assist countries in enhancing the adequacy and effectiveness of investments in health. It also reinforces accountability for these endeavours.

ALM members have agreed on a set of objectives and commitments aimed at enhancing domestic health financing. These objectives include:

• Securing more funding for health (with a focus on augmenting domestic health resources).
• Achieving better health outcomes with the available resources (enhancing how domestic health funds are allocated).
• Promoting equity (by improving access and lessening the financial burden on individuals seeking care).
• Emphasising leadership and coordination (aimed at bolstering collaboration among stakeholders involved in health financing).

Heads of states within the African Union endorsed these objectives. They also supported the development of monitoring tools to track progress towards health financing targets, such as allocating 15% of government expenditure to the health sector, in alignment with the 2001 Abuja Declaration.