Agency Urges African Leaders to Implement Abuja Declaration

An International NGO, Christian Aid, has called on African Leasers to abide by the Abuja Declaration on health by allocating at least 15 per cent of their annual budget to boast healthcare delivery in the continent.Head of Programme Quality Africa. Christian Aid, Miriam Machaya said this at the Ellis-Hadwin Health Legacy Project Global Celebration via webinar organised by Christian Aid on Thursday .

Supreme reports that on April 27, 2001, African governments made a pledge to allocate at least 15 per cent of their annual budgets to the health sector. This vow became known as the Abuja Declaration. Machaya said that commitment to the declaration would help the continent work towards strengthening the health sector in Africa and mitigate the rising cases of morality as well as poverty. According to Christian Aid , the Ellis-Hadwin Health Legacy Project Global was a 2.9 million pounds, fund set up to deliver a three year health programme in Africa.

The project being handled by Christian Aid would run for four years specifically in Burundi, Sierra Leone and South Sudan. She said that Christian Aid was working towards strengthening the continent’s health sector and building resistance community to resist health shocks when the happen like the recent volcano in Congo. “We are guided by the Christian Aid policy in all we do ,we build partnership and build regional policy agenda to aim higher for universal health .” We also strengthen technology .we want to work to end inequality in the health sector in Africa .“We really invest in health because we believe that is key for sustainable health so we have programmes that handle issues on ground.

Ms Karimi Kinoti ,Head of Africa Christian Aid said that the Ellis-Hadwin Legacy global celebration was an event to appreciate the sacrifice of Ellis-Hadwino to the health sector . Kinoti said that the armed crisis experienced by these countries made the health sector weak that was why it was important for Christian Aid to engage in the health sector .According to her, health is fundamental right but sadly that is not the case in Africa.Kinoti added that having money and medical cover was not even a guarantee for good health adding that health care delivery should not just be available in quantity but in quality as well.

“Medical cover, liquid cash is not a bottomless pit, if a person is not well for example a chronic illness, quality health is a huge financial burden for many households especially the poor households where decisions has to be made on a daily basis, continually on what the available money should be used for; school, food, hospital etcetera” She said. “Affordable health care models are far from being standard practice, so it is the question of quality, there is also the question of affordability”.

Kinoti said that most African governments depended on external resources to run their health sectors.She said that Christian Aid strategic framework in the health sector in Africa was to help to step up development role.She added that there was also need for governments to increase financing the health sector from domestic resources adding that it will go a long way to solve most health issues. She added that there was need to also leverage on the health innovation and partnership to increase health reach to vulnerable people.

Kinoti said that vulnerable and marginalised groups were grateful for the work of Christian Aid did and the ones they would continue to do to have access to good and affordable healthcare as the NGO come to the end of the legacy programme. Also speaking, Ms Anne Adah-Ogoh ,Health Legacy Programme Manager said that the project was carried out in five countries of Burundi, Sierra Leone, South Sudan Kenya and Nigeria. Adah-Ogoh said that the aim of the programme was to test community health approach in fragile and supply challenged settings where longer term programming can be extremely challenging. She said that this would help to understand what approaches were most suitable in these contexts.

“Improving poor women and men’s access to essential health care is the overall aim of the community health approach. “The Health Legacy programme is specifically intended to support Christian Aid to strengthen our evidence base, communicate our impact and leverage other funding through testing approaches, match funding and relationship building.