(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The Peninsula
DOHA: Qatar is one of 10 new investors in the Global Financing Facility (GFF) which announced yesterday — with total pledges amounting to $1.005bn to transform the global health. The GFF, in Support of ‘Every Woman Every Child' announced the contributions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Burkina Faso, Canada, Côte d'Ivoire the European Commission, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Laerdal Global Health, the Netherlands, Norway, and the UK, in addition to Qatar.
These funds will help the GFF partnership on the pathway toward expanding to as many as 50 countries with the greatest health and nutrition needs, and contribute to saving and improving millions of lives by 2030. The GFF is a catalyst for health financing that is helping countries to transform how they invest in women, children and adolescents because for too long, their health and nutrition has been chronically and persistently de-prioritised and underfunded—resulting in the preventable deaths of 5 million women and children every year.
The GFF helps countries in three specific ways like developing an investment case and implementation plan prioritizing reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition and a strong primary health care system; strengthening a country-led platform that aligns all key stakeholders around a prioritized health and nutrition plan; and working with countries to mobilize and coordinate the financial resources needed to accelerate progress for the most vulnerable populations in the hardest-to-reach regions.
Yesterday, World Bank, which hosts the GFF, announced that in just the last three years, $482m in funding from the GFF Trust Fund had been linked to $3.4bn in funding from the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The $1.005bn pledged to the GFF Trust Fund in Oslo today is expected to link to an additional $7.5bn in IDA/IBRD resources for women, children and adolescents' health and nutrition.
Additionally, in partnership with the GFF, the World Bank announced that the World Bank Treasury had launched a series of Sustainable Development Bonds to raise awareness among investors of the significant and long-lasting benefits of investing in the health and nutrition of women, children and adolescents, and that these have raised $935m since June 2018. These bonds bring private capital into the IBRD financing pool and serve as an entry point for investors to become aware of the growing opportunities in sustainable investments.
To reduce barriers for countries to access these funds, the GFF provides co-financing and loan buy-down grants that enable governments to catalyze public and private funds for investing in the health and nutrition of women, children and adolescents. 'Today there is great hope that the world's poorest countries can build healthy, vibrant futures where no woman, child or youth is left behind.
The GFF partnership is effective and efficient—working with countries to develop the capacity to build and sustain the health systems their women and children need to survive and thrive, said Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway and Co-Chair of the Sustainable Development Goals Advocates.
'In 2018, all mothers should be able to protect their own health, and the health of their babies and children. But each day, 830 women die from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth and 450,000 children under five die needlessly every month, said Kristalina Georgieva, CEO of the World Bank.
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