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Health received less than 5 percent of the federal budget in every year checked since 2016

The Federal Ministry of Health and the Basic Health Care Provision Fund as a share of each year's Appropriation Act, from Budget Office of the Federation documents.

The Public Interest ·

The 2001 Abuja Declaration set a target of at least 15 percent of government budgets for health. In the federal Appropriation Acts checked from 2016 to 2026, the Federal Ministry of Health and the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) never received more than 4.93 percent, the share in 2023. In 2026 the share was 3.67 percent, or ₦2.51 trillion of ₦68.32 trillion.

Health's share of the federal budget, by yearFederal Ministry of Health and its agencies plus the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, percent of total expenditure in the Appropriation Act
0%2%4%6%2016, Share of budget: 4.1%4.1%20162017, Share of budget: 4.2%4.2%20172018, Share of budget: 4.5%4.5%20182019, Share of budget: 4.8%4.8%20192020, Share of budget: 4.2%4.2%20202022, Share of budget: 3.8%3.8%20222023, Share of budget: 4.9%4.9%20232026, Share of budget: 3.7%3.7%2026 0%2%4%6%2016, Share of budget: 4.1%4%20162017, Share of budget: 4.2%4%20172018, Share of budget: 4.5%5%20182019, Share of budget: 4.8%5%20192020, Share of budget: 4.2%4%20202022, Share of budget: 3.8%4%20222023, Share of budget: 4.9%5%20232026, Share of budget: 3.7%4%2026

Source: Budget Office of the Federation, Appropriation Acts and Bills as passed, 2016 to 2026 (2023 from the Act's Federal Ministry of Health schedule). The figure is the recurrent and capital allocation of the Federal Ministry of Health (from 2023 the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare) and all its agencies, plus the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, divided by the aggregate expenditure in Section 1 of each Act. The fund appears as a provision for the National Health Act in 2018, as a service-wide vote in 2019, and as a statutory transfer from 2020; the 2016 and 2017 Acts have no such line. Other health items in service-wide votes, such as GAVI/immunisation, are not included in any year. From 2023 the Acts assign loan-funded capital to ministries and it is included; before 2023 such loans were a single unallocated line and are not. The 2023 total is from the Act's schedule for the ministry, which carries the fund as one of its lines, divided by ₦21.83 trillion. 2021, 2024 and 2025 are left out because the Act figures for those years could not be confirmed against the primary documents. Each Act is the main Act as first signed; supplementary, amended and re-enacted budgets are not included.

Source documents: Budget Office, 2016 Appropriation Act; Budget Office, 2017 Appropriation Act; Budget Office, 2018 Appropriation Act; Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), copy of the signed 2018 Appropriation Act; Budget Office, 2019 Appropriation Bill as passed; Budget Office, 2020 Appropriation Bill as passed; Budget Office, 2022 Appropriation Bill as passed; Budget Office, 2023 Appropriation Act, Federal Ministry of Health; Budget Office, 2026 Appropriation Bill (final).

Show the figures
YearShare of budget
20164.13%
20174.15%
20184.51%
20194.76%
20204.16%
20223.79%
20234.93%
20263.67%
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In 2026 the ministry and its agencies received ₦2.26 trillion, including ₦25.90 billion of loan-funded capital, and the fund received ₦245.14 billion. The 2026 Act also carries health items outside the ministry that are not counted here, among them ₦250.96 billion for GAVI/immunisation and ₦482.76 billion of counterpart funding for the Nigeria-United States memorandum on health sector intervention.

The shares here are of the federal budget only and do not include the budgets of states and local governments.

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