Global financing facility to boost women's, children's health
New York: The World Bank Group and Governments of Canada, Norway, and
the United States will jump start the creation of an innovative Global
Financing Facility (GFF) to mobilise support for developing countries'
plans to accelerate progress on the health-related Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) and bring an end to preventable maternal and
child deaths by 2030.
The GFF, in support of Every Woman Every Child, is being developed in
cooperation with a broad range of stakeholders, including partner
countries; the H4+ agencies (UNICEF, UNFPA, WHO, UNAIDS, UN Women and
the World Bank Group), civil society organisations, bilateral and
multilateral development partners, foundations, private sector and
others working in the areas of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child
and adolescent health.
The GFF will support countries in efforts to mobilise additional
domestic and international resources needed to scale up and sustain
essential health services for women, children and adolescents.
The initial donor commitments to the World Bank Group for the GFF
include grants of $600 million from Norway and $200 million from Canada.
The GFF resources will be provided to countries in conjunction with
low-interest loans and grants from the International Development
Association (IDA), the World Bank Group's fund for the poorest
countries.
Based on strong country demand for health results-based financing
programs, these bilateral contributions could leverage up to an
estimated $3.2 billion from IDA, for a total of up to $4 billion in
financing to support MDG acceleration and improve reproductive,
maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID), on behalf of the
United States, is committed to working with partners to set up the GFF,
bringing its full arsenal of innovative financing mechanisms and
public-private partnerships to the collaboration.
Aligning USAID's support through these complementary mechanisms could
bring upto $400 million in leveraged resources to the efforts.
"The creation of the Global Financing Facility will enable us to
transform the business of global health and development with scaled-up,
smart and sustainable financing, so that all women and children have
access to lifesaving care," said World Bank Group President Jim Yong
Kim.
"This signals our collective resolve as development partners to help
countries push further and faster to bring an end to preventable
maternal and child deaths and extreme poverty," he said.
The support to create the GFF was pledged by global leaders at the
high-level event for Every Woman Every Child during the 69th UN General
Assembly.
The GFF will be designed to support the goals of the Every Woman
Every Child global movement and the Global Strategy for Women's and
Children's Health, launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during
the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit in September 2010 and
supported by the G-8 Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn, and Child
Health, launched under the leadership of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen
Harper.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "Under the Every Woman Every
Child partnership model, the health community is leading the way in
finding innovative solutions and expanding new partnerships. For the
first time ever, we have the historic opportunity to end all preventable
maternal, newborn and child deaths within a generation."
"This new funding boost and innovative financing approach will help
us get closer to that goal, with United Nations agencies and multiple
partners playing a major role," he said.
The GFF will build on the experience, capacity and strong track
record of the Health Results Innovative Trust Fund at the World Bank
Group to support developing countries' national plans for scaling up
access to quality reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent
health services.
Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway said, "Norway is committed to
support the Global Financing Facility. With its diversification of
resources, results focus and targeting of girls and women, this is
tailor-made for the new development agenda."
A unique aspect of the GFF is to support developing countries in
their transition to long-term sustainable domestic financing as they
grow from low to middle-income economies.
The facility is expected to mobilise additional domestic and
international funds from a variety of sources, including other bilateral
and multilateral donors, domestic budgets, the private sector and
innovative financing mechanisms.
A special focus area of the GFF will be to support countries to
expand Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) efforts toward
universal registration of every pregnancy, every birth and every death
by 2030.
- World Bank
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