Congo

Under the Constitution, there is no right to health per se but a reference to the State's obligation to guarantee public health (art. 36). Furthermore, the Constitution grants every citizen the right to a healthy, satisfying and sustainable environment (art. 41).

The Constitution refers to a health mandate for legislative authorities and for local authorities. Under article 125 of the Constitution, the law governs, among others, citizenship, civic rights and the exercise of public freedoms, the organisation and operating rules concerning ministerial offices and the liberal professions and, the basis, rate and methods of collection of taxes of all kinds. Furthermore, the law sets fundamental principles for a number of areas including health, social action, teaching, water, electricity (non-exhaustive list). Local authorities are also given a constitutional mandate for health and areas influencing health. Specifically under article 210, local authorities are competent for departmental planning, development and management, housing, basic health, social action and civil protection, prevention, risk reduction and disaster management, transport, road maintenance and, the local authority budget (non-exhaustive list).

The main goal of the "Politique Nationale de Santé 2018-2030" is to improve the health of the population by ensuring universal access to integrated, continuous and person-centred healthcare by 2030 (page 19).

The policy identifies four strategic orientations, including strengthening health governance, improving access to essential health services, enhancing the quality of health services, promoting health security, and managing health emergencies as well as health promotion (pages 19-22).

The Policy outlines some of the challenges linked to the country's legal and regulatory framework. For example, these include outdated and inadequate legal texts, particularly for certain health programs and structures like the National Public Health Laboratory and the National Blood Transfusion Center. The implementation of decentralization, which assigns the management of basic health structures to local authorities, is delayed due to the absence of implementing texts (page 14).

Under strategic orientation 1 relating to strengthening health governance, the first action listed is to enhance the legal framework for a coherent operation of health systems (page 20).

No current national health plan was located. The latest available plan covers the period 2018-2022.