African nations have some of the world’s
worst outcomes on Reproductive,
Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health
(RMNCH) indicators such as mortality
rates, therefore strengthening the
delivery of RMNCH continues to take
priority on Africa’s public health agenda.
However, Africa's health system is
generally underfunded and while it is
mostly financed from out-of-pocket
payments from households, government
spending and external funding, research
evidence shows that greater mobilization
of domestic funding is the more
sustainable pathway to fund RMNCH in
African nations. In order for African
nations to step up domestic resource
mobilization (DRM) for RMNCH, they
need a data-driven picture of the
landscape of local funding sources for
RMNCH but there is a deficiency of
quality data on domestic funding sources
for RMNCH at the local level within
African nations. As seen with the more
successful tracking of foreign aid,
rigorous domestic tracking can be
profitable for providing important
information on the state of existing local
funding sources and inform further
innovative financing strategies to
improve funding and expenditure
2
inadequacies for RMNCH. Needless to say,
financial constraints, lacking statistical
capacity, and political factors are some
formidable challenges preventing African
governments from investing in tracking
DRM (Mann et al., 2016; Faye et al.,
2020) . This systematic review will help
to identify African nations who are
tracking DRM for RMNCH and the types
of funding sources being engaged.
Furthermore, the findings of this
systematic review can inform evidenced
decision-making and policy design
concerning DRM strategies; highlight
gaps and areas for further research; and
demonstrate the importance of tracking
domestic financing for improving health
outcomes in African nations as an
advocacy tool for greater mobilization.
Mann, C., Ng, C., Akseer, N., Bhutta, Z. A.,
Borghi, J., Colbourn, T., Hernández-Peña,
P., Huicho, L., Malik, M. A., MartínezÁlvarez,
M., Munthali, S., Salehi, A. S.,
Tadesse, M., Yassin, M. A., & Berman,
P. (2016). Countdown to 2015 Country
Case Studies: What Can Analysis of
National Health Financing Contribute to
Understanding MDG 4 and 5 Progress?
BMC Public Health.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-
3403-4Faye, C., Wehrmeister, F. C.,
Melesse, D. Y., Mutua, M. K., Maïga, A.,
Taylor, C. M., Amouzou, A., Jiwani, S. S.,
Silva, I. C. M. da, Sidze, E., Porth, T., Cá, T.,
Ferreira, L. Z., Strong, K., Kumapley, R.,
Carvajal-Aguirre, L., Hosseinpoor, A. R.,
Barros, A. J. D., & Boerma, T. (2020).
Large and Persistent Subnational
Inequalities in Reproductive, Maternal,
Newborn and Child Health Intervention
Coverage in Sub-Saharan Africa. BMJ
Global Health.
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-
002232
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