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Senegal - P4H Network
Current Health Expenditure (CHE) as % Gross Domestic Product (GDP)4.4%CHE/GDP
Out-of-pocket (OOPS) spending as % of Current Health Expenditure (CHE)47.3%OOP/CHE
Domestic General Government Health Expenditure (GGHE-D) as % General Government Expenditure (GGE)4.4%GGHE-D/GGE
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in constant (2020) US$ in millions (M), billions (B), or trillions (T)28BGDP (USD)
Population in thousands (K), millions (M) or billions (B)16.9MPopulation

Senegal is deep committed to universal health coverage (UHC) – at the political, institutional, financial and operational levels. And it has the results to match. Furthermore, reforms underway are building on what the country has learned from experience.

On September 20, 2013, Senegal’s president officially launched UHC in the country. Following this launch, on January 7, 2015, the Universal Financial Protection agency was set up (couverture maladie universelle (CMU)). And, in 2017, the country’s National Health Financing Strategy (NHFS) was put in place.

The NHFS has four strategic axes:

  1. Improvement in availability of quality health services.
  2. Extension of financial protection in case of illness.
  3. Strengthening of multisectoral action with high impact on health.
  4. Increased mobilization of financial resources to advance UHC.

Social protection programme

The Ministry of Health and Social Action (MHSA) of Senegal, through its social protection programme, is committed to improving access to health and social assistance services free from discrimination on the basis of gender identity, in particular for people living in the most extreme poverty, people with disabilities and vulnerable groups. The following table summarizes MHSA’s initiatives and results in 2023.

Initiatives Main Results
Community-based health insurance (CBHI) centers 46 departmental CBHI centers, with 676 local branches
4,484,980 beneficiaries covered by CBHIs, which equates to a coverage rate of 26% of the overall population
Free services for children under the age of 5 years 14,795,315 claims
Free Caesarean section 146,732 claims
Free health care for people over the age of 60 years (Sesame Plan) 646,740 claims
Free dialysis 850,000 claims for dialysis sessions benefiting 5423 people

Source : National Health Accounts 2017-2021

Sources of health financing (% of total health expenditure, or THE)

Financing source 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Central Government 24.2 22.4 24.5 29.3 28.0 
Decentralized Government 1.4 1.1 0.7 2.0 1.0
Companies 6.7 2.4 2.9 6.3 7.0
Households 46.1 52.5 45.0 37.6 36.4
Nongovernmental organizations 1.2 1.6 1.9 2.2 2.0
Development partners 20.4 20.0 25.0 22.6 25.5

From 2012 through 2024, the budget of the MHSA increased 138% from CFAF 110.5 billion to CFAF 263.5 billion. The execution of the MHSA budget is at a satisfactory level (94.92% in 2020 and 95.34% in 2021 excluding salaries).