Governments are under increasing pressure to respond by securing sustainable health financing and strengthening health systems. Health taxes—targeted excise taxes on harmful products—represent a cost-effective yet underutilized tool available to policymakers to reduce consumption of unhealthy products that cause preventable morbidity and premature mortality and impose enormous economic costs.
Health taxes offer a triple-win solution:
- Saving lives and preventing disease by reducing the consumption of harmful products.
- Generating domestic revenue that can reduce reliance on declining donor aid.
- Reducing long-term health system costs.
This brief describes the context of health taxes in Africa. It focuses on three high-impact product categories: tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks. These are major contributors to the continent’s NCD burden, and targeted taxes on these products can deliver outsized benefits. The brief explores the role of health taxes in domestic resource mobilization, providing country examples and policy design considerations.
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