Development assistance for health and the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract

Introduction Donor countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates have been among the most generous donors in the world, providing a large amount of aid relative to their national income. However, little is known about how much these country donors are contributing for health. In this study, I worked with my study team and aimed to address the gap by estimating the amount of development assistance for health (DAH) contributed by MENA country donors from 2000 to 2017, disaggregating by health focus area and recipient. Methods We tracked DAH provided and received by the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region from 2000-2017, leveraging publicly available development assistance data in the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) database of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), project-level and aggregate-level government agency budgets, reports, as well as financial statements from key international development agencies. We generated estimates of DAH provided by the three largest donor countries in the MENA region (United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) and compared contributions to their relative gross domestic product and government spending; We also captured DAH contribution contributed by other MENA country governments (including but not limited to Egypt, Iran, Oman, Qatar, Turkey) disbursed through multilateral agencies. Additionally, we compared DAH contributed from the MENA region and provided to the MENA region. Results In 2017, DAH contributed by the MENA region reached $514.8 million, a four-fold increase from 2000. While United Arab Emirates ($220.1 million, 43.2% of DAH from MENA), Saudi Arabia ($177.3 million, 34.8%) and Kuwait ($59.8 million, 11.6%) as sources contributed the majority of DAH in 2017, 58.5% of total DAH from MENA was disbursed through their respective bilateral agencies, 12.0% through the World Health Organization (WHO) and 3.3% through other United Nations agencies. 44.8% of DAH contributions from MENA was directed to health system strengthening and sector-wide approaches. Relative to their respective gross domestic product and government spending, the DAH level fluctuated across 2000 to 2017 but United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia indicated increasing trends. Conclusion MENA country donors especially United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have been providing substantial amount of DAH, channeled through their bilateral agencies, WHO and other multilateral agencies, and with a prioritized focus on health system strengthening. DAH from MENA region has an increasing trend for the past 18 years, and could lend itself to important contributions for the region and the globe.