Diagnosis of the Beninese Health System: Progress and Challenges for an Efficient, Resilient and Sustainable System

This work involved diagnosing the Beninese health system based on secondary data from several sources (statistical directories, surveys, censuses, and study reports). The descriptive analysis of the evolution of health indicators in Benin between 2002 and 2021 and in-depth interviews with resource people in the health sector made it possible to assess the efforts and progress made by those in power and system stakeholders. There have been many tangible efforts to improve accessibility to health services (the rates of health coverage and attendance at health facilities have increased from 86% to 96% and from 35% to 56% between 2002 and 2021). These efforts have significantly reduced morbidity and mortality rates. The results also indicate a drop in deaths due to malaria (141 deaths to 86 per 100,000 inhabitants between 2003 and 2021) and a drop in the prevalence of HIV/AIDS up to 0.8% from 2019 ahead of several countries-neighbors of the sub-region. Early neonatal mortality fell from 10.1‰ to 4.7‰ as well as deaths of children under 5 years old, thus improving life expectancy at birth from 59.6 years in 2002 to 63.8 years in 2013. Despite these efforts, many challenges remain, adding to the strong demographic growth in the country, which clearly expresses the threats weighing on the daily state of health of the Beninese population and calling for a new way of thinking for a sustainable health system. The study ends with the prioritization of challenges and a proposal for strategies to have an efficient and resilient health system, capable of producing quality, healthy, and productive human capital.