Fiscal Space for Health in Uganda (Electronic book text)

This report reviews performance of UgandaOCOs health sector and assesses options for increasing total health spending and improving efficiency of health spending to improve health, nutrition, and population outcomes. The paper is targeted to policy makers in health those involved in financing of health services both within government and donor agencies. Although UgandaOCOs health outcomes are improving, because of the high disease burden, the country is unlikely to achieve its national targets for health as well as the health-related Millennium Development Goals. Given current projections UgandaOCOs health budget will grow at a modest rate and prospects for Uganda to attain the level of financing necessary to meet its national health and MDG targets will remain limited. Uganda currently allocates 10 percent of the government budget to health and spends about USD$ 15 per capita compared to the US$ 28 per capita required to fully finance implementation of the health sector strategic plan. Despite the low level of funding, Uganda is also under considerable pressure to increase spending for health. This is driven primarily by the rapidly growing population and the need to adopt for more effectiveOCoand expensiveOCohealth technologies and service standards to combat the high disease burden. The main conclusion of the report is that while Uganda needs to continue exploring ways to mobilize funding for health it needs to improve the efficiency of its health spending to maximize the health benefits for its population. Uganda could reap significant savings by improving management of human resources for health; strengthening procurement and logistics management for medicines and medical supplies; and by better programming of development assistance for health. Besides, Uganda needs to take proactive steps to mitigate growing pressure to increase health spending."