Stakeholders in the health sector are urging the Kano State government to deepen its commitment toward releasing the allocated funds for the health sector and women’s health in particular so as to improving healthcare service delivery in the state.
The call was made on Wednesday in Kaduna at the SMART advocacy workshop on improved women’s health services for members of Kano State-Led Accountability Mechanism KanSLAM championed by Pathfinder International in collaboration with Center for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI).
While commending the state government for allocating 16.46% of its annual budget size to the health sector, the group urged the government to act beyond the huge allocation by ensuring timely release of the funds for efficient service delivery.
The group commended Kano State Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf for increasing the health allocation from N40bn to N71bn seven months after his inauguration, representing a significant increase of N31bn or 78.89% when compared to the 2023 fiscal year.
Specifically, they also applauded the state government for surpassing the Abuja declaration of 15% allocation of the state’s budget expenditure to the health sector, by increasing it to 16.46% in the 2024 health budget.
However, despite the huge allocation, it was observed at the workshop that as of the close of the 2023 fiscal year, only N21.13 billion representing about 51% was spent on healthcare out of the N40.25 billion allocated for the year.
This inadequate or non-release of the allocated funds, according to the groups, is affecting effective reproductive health activities and eventual high maternal mortality rate of (MMR) 1025 per 100,000 live births.
In her address, Dr Umma Abubakar Isah, Family Planning Coordinator at the Kano State Ministry of Health, identified some challenges affecting women’s health in Kano to include inadequate budget allocation for free Maternal and Child Health MCH and non-release of funds for free MCH.
Others, according to her, are non-release of Family Planning (FP) budgets, persistent stock outs of FP commodities and inadequate consumables, lack of facilities to cater to People Living with Disabilities and unmet need for modern contraceptives which currently stands at 15.5%.
Dr. Isah however, appealed to the state government to ensure adequate allocation and timely release of funds to healthcare programs, strengthening monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and ensure transparent governance through the State Open Government Partnership.
On her part, Mrs. Toyin Akande, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of the Center for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI) also outlined fund constraints, inadequate manpower, data management and procurement issues as part of the challenges hindering women’s health activities in the state.
Akande therefore called on the stakeholders to boost public awareness and education campaigns, enhance advocacy and policy engagement as well as strengthen collaboration and networking to achieve the desired goal.
In her earlier remark, Dr. Sekina Bello, Senior Technical Advisor, Pathfinder Nigeria said the purpose of the advocacy workshop was to build capacity of KanSLAM advocates through the AFP SMART approach and to develop advocacy strategies for the improvement of women’s health in Kano State.