With a population of 55 million, Kenya is East Africa's largest economy and — like many of its neighbors — faces a fast-rising NCD burden. NCDs accounted for 39% of all deaths in 2020, up from 27% in 2014, with over half of those affected by NCDs under 40 years old. With such a large portion of its working-age population affected, NCDs are expected to exact a profound toll on the country and its economy.
The NCD outlook may seem challenging, but Kenya has taken important strides in addressing its rising NCD burden in three critical areas of health financing. This progress forms a strong basis for FAN’s work in the country—and will build on the country's position as one of Africa's frontrunners in sustainable NCD financing.
Kenya has made significant advances in domestic resource mobilization to address NCDs through a multi-faceted approach that encompasses several strategic frameworks.
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) leverage collaboration between sectors, mobilizing additional resources for comprehensive NCD prevention and control efforts. This collaborative model broadens the range of available interventions and enhances service delivery.
Kenya’s approach to resource mobilization also involves innovative financing mechanisms, particularly through the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF). As the country’s primary health financing mechanism, SHIF plays a crucial role in providing financial protection against healthcare costs, especially for NCD treatment.
Kenya has leveraged governance and policy measures by implementing fiscal interventions like taxes on unhealthy products. These taxes generate domestic revenues specifically allocated towards NCD programs.
Kenya is implementing significant reforms to its health insurance system, particularly through the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), aimed at broadening coverage to include NCD-related services and facilitating the pooling of resources from multiple sources to provide equitable access to NCD care across the population.
Health financing policies as outlined in Kenya’s National Health Financing Strategy (2018–2030) encourage contributions from both public and private sectors, enabling a more comprehensive pooling of funds essential for financing NCD interventions.
Kenya has also worked toward strengthening primary healthcare (PHC) as a sustainable strategy for addressing NCDs. Its PHC Fund aims to integrate NCD care into existing health service delivery so that communities can access essential services at the lowest levels of care. By emphasizing efficiency gains and pooling resources and integrating NCD care into a broader health package, Kenya is able to reduce the overall financial burden on the health system.
PPPs enable more strategic purchasing of NCD services and technologies and therefore allow Kenya to utilize available resources more efficiently. Kenya is also making use of strategic purchasing through its National Diabetes Strategy by identifying and scaling up the most cost-effective interventions for diabetes management, and has been able to maximize the efficiency of NCD service delivery by utilizing key operational levers related to medicines, health products, and purchasing and payment systems. Kenya has partially achieved the target on providing drug therapy, including for glycemic control, and counselling for people at high risk to prevent heart attacks and strokes, with an emphasis on the primary care level
Designated Country Core Groups bring together key country-level stakeholders responsible for policymaking, program design and implementation, evidence generation, and systems-level change.
Health Financing for Noncommunicable Diseases: Landscape Analysis of Practices and Challenges in the Sub-Saharan Africa Region
Regional NCD Financing Accelerators serve as centers of excellence, supporting country-based teams to improve health financing for NCDs.
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