The sector guiding document is the health sector strategic plan, which includes sector priorities for the coming years, and has been extended to cover through 2024.
Specifics on health financing
Mozambique has a universal access system to services, based on the right of citizenship, which does not require specific payments to access services. The main current reforms are focused on improving the quality of service and the efficiency in providing services.
The funding of the public health sector in Mozambique is covered with resources from the national treasury (Ministry of Economy and Finance) through general taxation that are allocated to the Ministry of Health (MISAU), provinces, districts and municipalities where this authority has been decentralized.
External funds represent a large volume of resources for the health sector, reaching 47% of the budget execution as tabulated in the 2021 Ministry of Health’ Budget execution Report (REO). Of these external funds, 87% are for medicines (donations in kind), and the remainder for donor funded projects
Mozambique allocates 13.4% of public expenditure for health (or 7.6% if only internal, national treasury resources are included). Analysed as part of GDP, public health expenditure is at 4.3% (or 2% without considering donor funds). These calculations are calculated based on data included in the REO.
A large volume of additional external resources, equivalent to all public expense, is executed outside the national budget, through external implementers. This is especially true of HIV/AIDS programmes, which contribute extensive external resources having a relevant impact in the composition of the sector’s financing. The 2015 National Health Accounts estimated that external financing covered 68% of health sector financing at that time. User fees covered a small part of sector financing, approximately 0.6% of health expenditure.
