Bridging Gap in the Health Care Sector: AfDB Offers Strategic Analysis on Financing Innovatively With the Private Sector

Monday, July 20, 2015

“The relevance of private sector role in delivering innovative health care to the poorest people, with the view to achieving global goal,” was underscored at a side event organized today in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Themed: “Keeping Health affordable-Leveraging Private and Domestic Resources for Health Innovations” the event was interactive and brought together key private sector representatives, Civil Society organizations as well as stakeholders in the health care area.
The African Development Bank Group was highly represented by its Finance Vice-President, Charles Boamah, who spanned over the institution’s engagement in building strong partnerships with the private sector to accelerate progress towards high-priority health objectives in Africa. He noted that over the last two decades, with help from the Bank, hundreds of millions of people have escaped the vicious cycle in health sector.

Recalling however the challenges ahead, the Vice-President explained that even though many African countries have made significant progress in the health sector, not all segments of the society equally benefit from the progress. “There is still lack of political ownership and a lot more remains to be done, especially in the areas of innovative financing and technology,” Boamah said.

In the area of innovative financing, the Vice-President stressed the need for stouter engagement where the interests of for-profit providers of health care and the public interests overlap. Building on examples, he also said inequality in health outcomes, access and service utilization remains high. “The poor have the largest unmet demand for family planning, make the lowest use of maternal care, have the lowest vaccination coverage, and are least likely to seek care when ill. The poor also have the lowest physical access to health care.”

Source: African Development Bank (link opens in a new window)

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