A government official in Kenya, on Tuesday said Kenya is considering issuing a social bond to fund its universal health care scheme.
Rashid Aman, chief administrative secretary, Ministry of Health made this known in a forum in Nairobi.
Aman said that the launch of the green bond market earlier this year provided a fertile ground and impetus to leverage on private capital to fund government projects.
“As part of increasing domestic resources for health, the government with innovative health stakeholders is exploring the feasibility of launching social impact bonds in health to provide an opportunity to leverage private equity.
“At the same time promoting the social good.’’
Aman, during the Commercial Bank of Africa sixth economic forum on the status of the health sector in Kenya said the event has brought together a panel of experts drawn from the health sector.
He said the health workers are to identify areas of improvement and contributions of the private sector in enabling the provision of quality affordable universal healthcare.
Aman said that one of the elements that the universal health coverage is intended to address is the high out of pocket expenditure in the country.
According to the Ministry of Health, Kenyan households spent approximately 118 billion shillings (1.14 billion U.S. dollars) in out of pocket health expenditure.
The government official noted that the number of Kenyans who slide into poverty due to catastrophic health expenditures associated with non communicable diseases is increasing.
The east African nation had also planned to put in place financial and non-financial incentives to promote local manufacturing of pharmaceuticals products.
