Kenya & East Africa Quarterly Report

The project is funded by USAID and provides support to the East African Community secretariat to harmonize resource-tracking tools to measure progress towards sustainable health financing and universal health coverage. The project's objectives are to increase sustainable finance and domestic resource mobilization for Kenya's health sector, strengthen national and county linkages to enhance Kenya's health finance, policy, and governance, and support regional (Eastern Africa) health networks to better position health financing agenda. The project's work-plan components are designed to achieve these objectives. In the third quarter of 2016, the project implemented several activities to achieve its objectives. Under Component 1, Increase Sustainable Finance and Domestic Resource Mobilization for Kenya's Health Sector, the project provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Health to complete the analysis of national and county health budgets for FY 2016/17. The analysis showed that national and county governments are increasing their budget allocations to health, but county governments are still limited in terms of capacity to adhere to the Public Financial Management Act, 2012 requirement of preparing program-based budgets. The project also conducted capacity-building workshops targeting members of the county health management teams from 13 new counties on program-based budgeting. The workshops were held in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Kenya School of Government, Ministry of Devolution and Planning, and Nathan Associates. The project incorporated lessons learned from previous training and updated the curriculum and participants manual to introduce new modules on priority setting and linking the budget to the county health department's annual work-plan. Under Component 2, Strengthen national and county linkages to enhance Kenya's health finance, policy, and governance, the project provided technical support to the Intergovernmental liaison and health sector coordination office at the Ministry of Health to facilitate meaningful health policy engagement between national and county governments. The project conducted several activities to support the Health Sector Intergovernmental Forum (HSIF) office, including providing support to the HSIF and facilitating meetings between national and county governments to discuss health policy issues. The project also conducted an assessment to determine the potential resources that may be available for HIV services in large infrastructural projects in Kenya. The initial review of 10 sample projects in the roads sector showed that funds had been set aside for mitigation of the impact of HIV and AIDS in the areas where the projects are taking place. The project expanded the assessment to cover more infrastructural projects and to check how the funds have been applied. In addition, the project conducted a study on costs and role of private sector in HIV care and treatment in Kenya. The study focused on understanding the costs of providing HIV services, size of HIV services provided by private sector, and what motivates private sector to deliver care and treatment services. The project completed the data collection, analysis, and prepared a draft report, which will be disseminated in the next quarter. The project also provided assistance to a selected five counties to track county performance on key transitional indicators related to health financing. The project held consultative meetings with the counties to promote exchange of experience and best practice among the counties on issues of health financing and social protection. The counties outlined challenges, opportunities, and possible solutions around the five indicators, as part of the selected counties' efforts towards sustainable financing of health.