Covid impact: Kenya to rely on donors to fund family planning for additional two years

The government will continue relying on donors to fund family planning for additional two years following the devastating impact of Covid-19 pandemic.

The initial plan was that the Kenyan government will progressively increase its funding for contraceptives as the donor funds decrease until 2025.

Despite Kenya having continued to increase the amount of resources allocated to the FP strategic commodities in the recent past, the Covid-19 pandemic has greatly impacted negatively on health systems, disrupting access to family planning information and service.

The Kenya government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with donors to ensure sustainable financing mechanism for the procurement of Family Planning Commodities.

The signing involved partners such as USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and will see access to FP commodities valued at Sh2.5 billion.

“In the in the initial plan we were to have 100 per cent funding from the government of Kenya for our family planning commodities but because of the pandemic’s economic impact we have requested to push this to 2025/26 two years forward,” Issak Bashir said.

Bashir is the Head of Department Family Health at the Health Ministry.

In 2019, key donors announced they would stop buying family planning products for Kenyans.

The donors — the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — said the cutbacks will be gradual, until 2025 when the government will fully take over the bill.

DFID's head of human and social development Tessa Mattholie said Kenya is now a middle-income country capable of financing its own family planning programme.

In the recent past, the Government of Kenya has continued to increase the amount of resources allocated to the FP strategic commodities.

Family planning was fully funded by the Kenyan government before health services were devolved. However, donors moved in when the new county governments failed to allocate money for the same since 2013.

“The major indicators of enhanced family planning is the availability of sufficient commodities when and where they are required so in essence we are basically saying that we are on the right trajectory,” Health PS Susan Mochache said.

“Devolution saw a major deep in the financing towards family planning until we realised very quickly that this matter was too strategic and too important to be held at that level and we pushed the matter back at the national level,” she added.

According to a breakdown, the three donors propose that the government this year spend at least Sh870 million on commodities, while they spend Sh1.3 billion.

The government's share will rise to Sh1.1 billion in 2021, Sh1.3 billion in 2022, and Sh1.7 billion in 2023. By 2024, the government should fully take over.

“In the financial 2019/2020, the National Treasury allocated Sh245 million and Sh540 million through UHC fund, 863 million each in FY 2020/2021 and 2021/2022. This amount is expected to reach nearly KES 1 Billion in 2022/2023,” Mochache added.

“This transition to fully financing in 2026 is key because Kenya is now a lower middle income country family planning is a major development agenda for Kenya and achieving full domestic financing for FP commodities will be a significant achievement,” USAID Mission Director, Mark Meassick said.

In Kenya, the number of children per every woman has been falling, while the uptake of contraception rises.

The contraceptive prevalence among married women has increased from 46 per cent 10 years ago to 58 per cent today to 64 per cent by 2030 as articulated in the FP 2030 recommitments.

Edited by S. Maombo