Prime Minister Concedes Health Sector Remains Underprovided

Jul 7 , 2026.

The health sector remains underprovided despite rising public spending, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) told Parliament today, in remarks that laid out where the money has gone and where it has fallen short, against a federal budget that shows how little of it there is to allocate.

The 2025/26 federal budget appropriates 48 billion Br for health, comprising 31.7 billion Br from the treasury and 16.3 billion Br from external assistance. Set against the total approved budget of 1.93 trillion Br, itself up 34.4pc from the previous year, the health allocation amounts to 2.5pc of federal spending, with external donors financing one of every three Birr.

The figure excludes regional health outlays channelled through federal subsidies, but as a statement of federal priority it sits far below the 15pc of government budgets that African Union member states, Ethiopia among them, pledged to health under the 2001 Abuja Declaration.

The Prime Minister's account pointed to a spending pattern weighted toward medical equipment rather than broader system expansion. According to him, the sector's needs extend beyond devices to buildings, beds and health workers, all of which remain in short supply.

"We can't satisfy the country's need with four hospitals," he said, urging faster expansion of tertiary care for a population of well over 100 million.

Renovation work at St. Paul's Hospital, while ongoing, does not meet national demand. His government's response is a construction programme of new model hospitals designed to raise both capacity and standards of care.

The one clear success in his account to the federal legislative house was pharmaceutical manufacturing. Domestic producers' share of the medicine market has climbed from about four percent to 45pc, according to the Prime Minister, a more than tenfold gain that shifts nearly half of supply onto local factory floors.

PUBLISHED ON Jul 07,2026 [ VOL 27 , NO 1367]