April 28, 2025 (NAIROBI, Kenya): The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) through its A2DSRH Programme have today kickstarted on Member State sensitization visits with an inaugural visit to the Ministry of Health, Kenya with the aim of the country visits is to sensitize key stakeholders about the IGAD Regional Health Financing Hub (RHFH) initiative and its benefits.
The Member State visits to all the IGAD Member States are to assess existing health financing structures and capacities; identify country-specific needs and priorities and to gather country-specific data on health financing mechanisms to enrich the draft regional health financing strategy and facilitate domestication and sensitization of regional health financing framework.
The IGAD team was led by Dr. Ahmed Hassan, Coordinator of the A2DSRH Programme together with Mr. Tesfaye Mesele, the Health Finance Expert.
Dr. Ahmed Hassan expressed his appreciation to the Ministry of Health for the efforts on the SRH agenda and enhancing health financing as a building block within the health systems.
Additionally, a framework for national health financing dialogues and country assessment reports and action plan for RHFH engagement will be developed to also input the already being worked on regional health financing strategy.
Member States will also identify capacity building and technical needs for support and to agree on coordination mechanisms between Ministries of Health and Finance and IGAD for better resource mobilization at national and regional levels.
The country visits are with the support from the African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) to ensure a comprehensive approach to the domestication visit, fostering a holistic understanding of processes, challenges, and best practices within Member States and help prioritize support from the Regional Health Financing Hub to strengthen regional coordination and collaboration.
The country visits will be followed by the designing of monitoring frameworks and comprehensive approach to ensure that the RHFH initiative is effectively domesticated within each Member State’s context while maintaining whilst keeping in alignment with regional and continental objectives that will soon be validated by the IGAD Member States at a regional meeting.
