World leaders pledge US$1 billion to transform health and nutrition of world’s poorest women, children and adolescents

The Global Financing Facility (GFF) in Support of Every Woman Every Child announced US$1.005 billion in 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, Qatar and the United Kingdom.

This 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 event was an important milestone toward the goal of raising as much as US$2 billion to expand to a total of 50 countries; the GFF is expecting additional pledges from new and existing investors who are considering new multi-year commitments.

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-prioritized and underfunded—resulting in the preventable deaths of 5 million women and children every year. The GFF helps countries in three specific ways:

1. developing an investment case and implementation plan prioritizing reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition and a strong primary health care system;
2. strengthening a country-led platform that aligns all key stakeholders around a prioritized health and nutrition plan; and
3. 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.

More than 2 billion people live in countries that spend less than $25 per capita on health. This is less than a third of what is needed for countries to provide basic, life-saving health services for their people. Through working with the GFF, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and other GFF-supported countries have shown that it is possible for all countries to improve their future and invest in the most vulnerable people in their societies by increasing investment in health. It also demonstrates that generous, but relatively small financial contributions can—when aligned and spent catalytically and efficiently in support of national investment cases—have exponential impact by mobilizing additional financing and saving millions of lives.

Burkina Faso reaffirmed its commitment to allocating at least 15% of its annual budget to improve health; Côte d’Ivoire committed to increasing its health budget 15% annually; and Nigeria recommitted to investing US$150 million per year from its budget to sustainably finance health and nutrition of women, children and adolescents. Increasing domestic resources is an integral focus of GFF-supported countries.

Donors and countries responded to an urgent need for countries to transform health financing in order to accelerate progress on universal health coverage and to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets of ending preventable maternal, newborn, and child deaths and improving the health and nutrition of women, children, and adolescents.

The World Bank, which hosts the GFF, announced that in just the last three years, US$482 million in funding from the GFF Trust Fund had been linked to US$3.4 billion in funding from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The US$1.005 billion pledged to the GFF Trust Fund in Oslo today is expected to link to an additional US$7.5 billion in IDA/IBRD resources for women, children and adolescents’ health and nutrition.

“Healthy women, children and adolescents contribute to a virtuous cycle,” said Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “With health comes the ability to go to school and learn, which helps people prosper as adults, who are then able to raise empowered children who continue the cycle. That’s why the GFF is such a great investment.”

With the commitments announced a total of $US1.005 billion in commitments has been raised for the 2019-2023 replenishment period, which aims to raise US$2 billion in total to expand the GFF to reach a total of 50 countries.

Original source: Gates Foundation
Published on 6 November 2018