The vice president in charge of the service cluster, Hussein Abdelbagi Akol, on Monday appealed to donors and health sector partners, especially those who withdrew support, to reconsider their position and continue funding the sector.
Akol who was speaking in Juba during the launch of a three-year health sector transformation project, also appealed to donors who have reduced their budget allocation to the health sector in South Sudan to revise their decision.
The three-year health sector transformation project is aimed at aligning all the health services across the country under one umbrella in the national ministry of health.
According to Vice President Akol, for South Sudan to achieve this goal, the health sector certainly needs the donors’ support.
“I understand some donors completely pulled out while some reduced their budgetary allocations to our health care services,” he said. “Whatever their reasons are, I appeal to them to reconsider their decision as we still need their support”
The vice president stated that the government is unable to fund the full budget of the health sector due to challenges resulting from the 2013 and 2016 conflicts.
“The country today is still recovering from the consequences of those unwanted wars. The implementation of the peace agreement also imposed a huge burden on our national financial resources denying vital service sectors such as health and education,” he explained. “This is why we still call our donor community to continue supporting our vital sectors until we achieve total recovery”
South Sudan’s health sector budget allocation is still far below the 15 percent national budget recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Abuja Declaration by the African Union Heads of State to achieve Universal Health Coverage.
Akol reiterated his commitment to continue advocating for more budget allocation for the health sector from the current 2.1 to 10 percent.
“The national budgetary allocation in the national health sector remains extremely minimal and the service cluster under my leadership is strongly pushing for sector increment budget to 10 percent of the entire national budget,” he stressed