National Health Accounts

Health Systems 20/20 is working with the Egyptian Ministry of Health (MOH) on Egypt's fourth round of National Health Accounts (NHA) estimates to capture public, private, and donor contributions, in addition to examining overall health care expenditures.

Speaking at the March 27th launch of the third round of National Health Accounts (NHA) in Kenya, the Honorable Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, Minister of Medical Services, noted that although household expenditure on health services in Kenya has declined, the current levels are too high and present a barrier to accessing health care services for poor households. “I will raise this issue with the government to ensure that more resources are allocated to the health sector and we are seen to be moving towards the Abuja target” stated the Minister.

His Excellency (H.E.), the Minister of Health, Prof. Dr. Hatem El Gabaly, defined NHA as a key tool in improving the effectiveness of health systems to achieve Egypt’s health reform objectives in opening a two-day NHA workshop in Cairo March 31-April 1.

Government and donor promotion of both National Health Accounts (NHA) and Public Expenditure Reviews (PER) raises the question, Is there a need to conduct NHA in countries that are undertaking PER and vice versa, or are these tools redundant?

African leaders meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, in April 2001, signed a declaration mandating that health budgets should constitute a minimum of 15% of national budgets. The Namibian Minister of Health, Dr. Richard Kamwi, recently informed participants at a Health Sector Stakeholders meeting about Namibia's progress in meeting this goal. The meeting was held on October 29, 2008, in Namibia.