Kenya to expand health cover to 25m Kenyans, says CS Anne Waiguru

Devolution CS Anne Waiguru

NAIROBI: Kenya plans to expand health insurance coverage to about 25 million people by the end of this year, Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru has said.

The cabinet secretary said this would be achieved through the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).

Ms Waiguru told an African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) forum of Heads of State in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that Kenya had made progressive strides in the area of social protection by expanding coverage of cash transfers to the aged, the vulnerable, orphans and people with severe disabilities.

She added that the Government had resettled internally displaced persons.

Waiguru said Kenya was adopting the Peer Review Mechanism as the framework for entrenching accountability, citizen participation and good governance in counties.

GOOD GOVERNANCE

“The mechanism will enable county leaderships to peer review and learn from each other,” she said.

Waiguru said APRM was a cornerstone in Africa’s efforts to realise good governance and remained an important framework that had continued to encourage and build transformative leadership through the sharing of information and experiences among African countries.

The summit was held ahead of the 24th Ordinary Assembly of Africa Union in Addis Ababa.

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed has called for strengthening of logistical capacity of the East African Standby Force (EASF).

EASF is a sub-regional mechanism of the African Standby Force set up with the mandate of enhancing peace and security in East African region.

“Enhancing the logistical capacity of EASF will enable timely and rapid interventions to conflict situations before they can escalate,” said Ms Amina.

The EASF, which was established with the primary objective of ensuring early interventions to conflicts in the East African region, is ready to deploy troops beginning this month.

MOBILISE RESOURCES

Amina said the force was now ready to deploy on request from the African Union Commission to operate on its own or through joint arrangements such as the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

She spoke on the sidelines of the 24th Ordinary Assembly of AU in Addis Ababa during EASF donor conference consultative meeting.

The meeting was convened to deliberate on a proposed donors’ conference to mobilise resources for the establishment of a peace fund to finance logistics for the operations of EASF.

“EASF should be strengthened through a peace fund as endorsed by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government on June 26, 2014, in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea,” she said.

The proposed conference is expected to identify and approach donors to support the peace fund and develop self-financing options.

To sustain the operations of the EASF for the next five year, the conference targets to raise USD 3.1 billion.