By Zayamu Hassan
The Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN) just concluded 5-year strategic plan will improve the performance, will improve accountability, prudent spending and health security in Africa.
Coordinator of AHBN, Dr Aminu Magashi Garba stated this to newsmen at the end of the five years strategic plan held in Abuja.
AHBN is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that focuses on advocacy, transparency and accountability in the health sector in Africa.
Responding to questions from newsmen, Dr Magashi said that one of the focal area of the plan is to improve health security in Africa.
The plan, he disclosed, will see AHBN becoming a regional influential advocacy and accountability player in Africa regarding health financing and accountability working with the Africa Union (AU), Africa CDC and other regional bodies.
The AHBH Coordinator noted that: “We want to set up a regional training centre here in Abuja for Africa that will be nurturing and incubating advocates, CSOs, media including government officials and public finance managers and health finance accountants.
“It is going to be physical as well as online centre that provides capacity building and training and also mentoring and coaching.
“We also look at the health security in Africa. That is the biggest issue right now. COVID is gradually phasing out, but health security is still a challenge.
“We are not done with outbreak of diseases because of the risks between human, animal and the environment. We cannot say that COVID has gone we will not be expecting another disease. So, we have to plan for that.
“Our role as AHBN in that space is to strengthen accountability for health security financing in Africa, working with all inter governmental bodies including the United Nations (UN) agencies and other players to achieve a common goal. That is also a plan that we also have.”
On what the common man in Africa stands to benefit from the AHBN’s ‘ambitious’ strategic plan, Dr Magashi said: ‘We are hoping that as we are doing this work, Africa will be resourced in the sense that if we engage more NGOs, more media, more advocates and more government.
“Also, if we engage at the regional and global level and if we support NGOs representation at every stage, we expect that Africa will get more resources domestically and from international partners and we will be able to manage our money better and we will promote transparency and accountability.
“We will engage more meaningfully with our government to deliver the promise they have made to their own people.
“The common man is expected to gain if there is prudent spending, timely release of money and this will translate into action, then reproductive, maternal, child health, elderly, nutrition including family planning and health security will get a boost.”
