Sharon Cannaby, April 2013. This paper provides an oversight into some of the key issues facing the health sector in Zambia and describes the role professionally qualified accountants can play in delivering the country’s health agenda.
The Zambian government has set itself the ambitious target ‘To provide equitable access to cost effective, quality health services as close to the family as possible’. Achieving this objective will require significant health reform: limited resources, high levels of poverty, poor physical infrastructure, geography and sparse population in rural areas all hamper the delivery of health care services and create challenges for policymakers and planners.
A greater insight into some of these issues was provided at a health conference organised recently by ACCA in Lusaka. The event gave politicians, health policymakers and senior ACCA members employed in the field of health the opportunity to discuss some of the key health challenges facing Zambia, to debate potential solutions and then to consider the role that ACCA accountants can play in supporting the government to achieve its goal of improving the health of the population.