International archives of medicine
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In order to raise African countries probability of achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015, there is need to increase and more efficiently use domestic and external funding to strengthen health systems infrastructure in order to ensure universal access to quality health care. The objective of this paper is to examine the changes that have occurred in African countries on health financing, taking into account the main sources of funding over the period 2000 to 2009. ⋯ Whilst the African Region (AFR) average government expenditure on health as a per cent of THE increased by 5.4 per cent, the average private health expenditure decreased by the same percentage between 2000 and 2009. The regional average OOPS as a per cent of private expenditure on health increased by 4.9 per cent. The average external resources for health as a percentage of THE increased by 3.7 per cent. Even though on average the quantity of health funds have increased, we cannot judge from the current study the extent to which financial risk protection, equity and efficiency has progressed or regressed.In 2009 OOPS made up over 20% of total expenditure on health in 34 countries. Evidence shows that where OOPS as a percentage of total health expenditure is less than 20%, the risk of catastrophic expenditure is negligible. Therefore, there is urgent need for countries to develop health policies that address inequities and health financing models that optimize the use of health resources and strengthen health infrastructure. Increased coverage of prepaid health-financing mechanisms would reduce over-reliance on potentially catastrophic and impoverishing out-of-pocket payments.