The role of zakat in the provision of health care for poor in Sudan

Abstract

Despite the relatively long experience of zakat in supporting health care for poor in Sudan, there is little evidence on its role in facilitating access of poor to health care. This paper investigates the role of Zakat in provision of health care for poor households in Sudan. The study relies on administrative data along with primary data collected from two Sudanese states. The results indicate that over the last decade, zakat enabled a considerable segment of poor families to access health care services, through enrolling them into health insurance and supporting treatments cost for poor persons. The survey analysis revealed that beneficiaries of zakat have more chances to access health care and less exposure to out of pocket health expenditure compared to non-zakat beneficiaries. This implies that zakat provides health care at low cost, hence protecting poor household from the risk of catastrophic health expenditure. Moreover, the qualitative analysis based on key informant interviews indicated that in the last ten years zakat allocated a huge fund to financing health care for poor households; hence, played significant role in enhancing the universal health coverage in Sudan. The study concludes with some recommendations aiming at reducing the challenges that curtail zakat fund from effectively providing health care for poor population. In addition, the study suggests that the Sudanese zakat experience is worth to be generalized to other Muslim-majority countries to help in providing health care for poor people.