Kampala, Uganda | ENTEBBENEWS.NET | The government has been urged to tackle inefficiencies in provision of healthcare in order to make the most out of the available meagre funding for health in the face of dwindling donor support.
Speaking at the closure of the three-day National Dialogue on health financing on Thursday, Dr Kasonde Mulenga Mwinga, the representative of the World Health Organization in Uganda said the country has had issues in its utilization of available resources and needs to prioritize investment in Primary Health Care (PHC).
She urged the government to consider assessing themselves and looking into inefficiencies such as existence of ghost workers on the pay roll saying this has helped countries such as Central African Republic in 2023 and Zambia in 2024 to reclaim money which has now been used to hire health workers into public service.
Just last week, the Ministries of Health and Finance were notified by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in a letter dated April 28, 2025, that it will end its direct government-to-government (G2G) funding under the Regional Referral Hospitals project. The funding termination takes effect on May 28, 2025. This project was funding seven hospitals including Gulu, Kabale, Mbarara, Moroto, Mbale, Lira, and Jinja.
This is not all that is affected, as many health programmes have been affected by the funding cuts initiated by the American government since the move to re-align its foreign policy was first announced in January.
Honoured to join the prime minister @RobinahNabbanja, @MinofHealthUG & partners at the National Dialogue on Health Financing. Sustainable financing is key to #UHC & the right to health. @WHO reaffirms its commitment to support #Uganda with global, regional & local expertise. pic.twitter.com/wlH72ILTcE
— WHO Representative in Uganda (@WHORepinUganda) May 8, 2025
Speaking at the dialogue this afternoon, Paul Mwanje, the Principal Economist at the Ministry of Finance and Planning said while they appreciate that domestic financing for health should be increasing, they cannot ably do this to levels needed because of debt servicing that is growing faster than the revenue collection.
Mwanje explained that the government has invested a lot in infrastructural development using commercial loans that are now maturing and need servicing. He revealed however that this financial year funding for the health sub programme is set to be increased by 12% to 12.5%.
Meanwhile, innovations suggested to salvage the health sector at the meeting include considering carefully structured Public Private Partnerships, increasing tax on sugary drinks and other unhealthy products in addition to quickly coming up with the National Health Insurance scheme.
However, despite more than a decade of pushing for it, public health insurance has failed to take off in Uganda. People continue paying heavily to access healthcare as an estimated thirty percent of health services are accessed through payments out – of – pocket.
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