The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Health Finance Technical Working Group has validated the Resource Mobilization Plan developed by the FCT task force in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Health Policy Plus (HP+) project.
The plan is aimed at addressing gaps in health care spending in the FCT from 2019 to 2022.
Speaking during the validation exercise for the plan on Tuesday at the conference room of the FCT Hospital Management Board, Chairman of the Technical Working Group and the Director Planning Research and Statistics of the FCT Health and Human Services Secretariat, Dr. M.B Kawu, said the Technical Working Group was building on the work started last year by the task force to develop a Resource Mobilisation Plan for the FCT.
He said the group had validated the plan “to see whether we are overly being optimistic or pessimistic in our projections.”
The FCT, based on its Strategic Health Development Plan II (SHDP II), requires about 185 billion naira from 2018 to 2022 to meet the health care needs of its populace.
However, analysts have identified a funding gap of over 80 billion naira, which they said may severely cripple the implementation of the SHDP II with a consequent effect on the performance and outcomes of the FCT’s health system.
The full actualisation of the Resource Mobilization Plan will mobilize an additional 61 billion naira in funds to support the SHDP II, progressively shrinking the funding gap from 36% to 19% of projected costs in 2019 and 2020 respectively and ultimately covering all costs in years 2021 and 2022.
In his remark, HP+ FCT Team Lead, Peter Oshaji, said the validation exercise was preparatory to the presentation of the plan to wider stakeholders in the FCT with a view to bringing everyone on board and ensuring successful implementation.
He said the FCT resource mobilisation plan was built on the assumption of increased government spending for the health sector from 8% to 12.5% of total expenditures.
