Burundi to honor the international declarations and commitments to which the country has subscribed in terms of health, has developed a framework and is implementing its health policy to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the World Program for Sustainable Development 2016-2030. The National Health Policy 2016-2025 is inspired by the country’s Constitution and Burundi Vision 2025, which place the health and well-being of Burundi’s population at the heart of the country’s development. This policy reaffirms our determination to move towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The government of Burundi is making major efforts to increase the proportion of the state budget devoted to health, but health financing remains heavily dependent on external resources. In 2018, 28.6% of current healthcare expenditure was financed by households through direct healthcare payments. A number of measures are in place to finance access to healthcare, including free care for children under five and women in maternity wards. Reforms involving free health care coupled with performance-based financing have led to a significant reduction in neonatal and infant mortality in Burundi.
Challenges remain in the health sector, such as reducing chronic and acute malnutrition, reducing maternal and infant mortality, and controlling infectious diseases, epidemics and chronic non-communicable diseases. We also face the challenge of mobilizing more public funding for healthcare, and of ensuring the coherence and pooling of different sources of funding to improve efficiency in a more strategic purchasing system and produce more healthcare services for the greatest number of people.
Analysis of the health financing system enables us to assess the system’s level of performance, to diagnose the reasons behind the results and to identify the challenges the country needs to take up, and the reforms required to make progress towards Universal Health Coverage objectives.
Discover a document in progress, in a first version dated March 24, 2022.
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