Low budgets have impacted reproductive health programmes in eastern Africa region, a new report has said.
Some countries, such as Uganda, are spending as low as 3.1 percent of their budget on its entire health services as recently as in 2020.
The picture becomes more depressing as other countries such as Burundi spent only 28 percent of the health budget on reproductive health.
“The majority of countries are spending dismally on reproductive health,” said a report by the African Institute for Development Policy (AfIDEP).
Findings of a study on existing gaps in reproductive health were revealed in a recent meeting of the Eastern Africa Reproductive Health Network (EARHN).
This is an advocacy network on reproductive health and family planning with membership from seven countries in the region.
These are Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan.
Target 3.7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) aims to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services by 2030.
These require countries to integrate reproductive health and attendant mother and child healthcare services into their national strategies.
However, the report obtained by The Citizen, noted that reproductive health outcomes remain poor in eastern Africa.
All the seven countries in the network “are far away” from meeting the SDG target of reducing maternal deaths to 70 deaths in every 100,000 live births.
Currently, maternal deaths in the region range from 1,223 deaths in every 100,000 live births in South Sudan to 238 deaths in Tanzania.’
Access to quality health services is also still limited in part due to the gravely inadequate investments in health by governments in the region.
None of the EARHN member countries has met the Abuja 2001 commitment of allocating at least 15 percent of their annual government budgets to health.
“This dismal expenditure on reproductive health explains the high number of mothers who continue to die giving birth,” said Dr Rose Oronje, AfIDEP when presenting the report.
A programme manager with an organization dealing with population and development issues Patrick Mugirwa blamed the policy makers for the drawback.
“Eastern Africa countries are not short of strong policies to advance access to quality reproductive health. The problem remains with implementing these policies,” he said.
He added that the current economic situation in many countries within and outside the region have eroded the progress made in improving the healthcare sector.
Clive Mutunga, a family planning expert with AfIDEP, called for integration of health programmes with the environment and climate change mitigation initiatives. Such platforms, he explained, could be leveraged to increase domestic resources for health and better health outcomes.
Source : Citizen
