Fiscal Space for Domestic Funding of Health and Other Social Services
Abstract
This paper addresses issues related to the fiscal space for increasing domestic government funding of health care and other social services. Fiscal space for health care has been defined as the ability of a government to allocate more resources to the health sector without prejudicing the sustainability of its financial position. Conducted from the perspective of providing both financial protection and access to needed health services, an analysis of the relationship between government spending on health and various indicators related to the goal of UHC supports a target of domestic government spending on health of at least 5% of GDP. Moving towards this target should not be at the expense of government spending on other social services – hence the emphasis on exploring ways of increasing government revenue in countries where total government expenditure as a percentage of GDP remains relatively low.
Citation
McIntyre, D.; Meheus, F. Fiscal Space for Domestic Funding of Health and Other Social Services. The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, UK (2014) 46 pp. ISBN 978 1 78413 005 3 [Working Group on Financing Paper 5]
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