World leaders pledge $1b to transform health and nutrition of poorest

World leaders make pledges all the time, and the announcement is trumpeted. But what is often not known is whether the pledges are fulfilled or not.

Last week, world leaders, including from developing countries pledged a little over $1 billion to support countries deal with challenges in the health and nutrition sectors – especially for the poorest, mostly women, children and adolescents.

The Global Financing Facility (GFF) announced the pledge which is in support of a programme known as Every Woman Every Child, in Oslo, Norway last week. The $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, will help the GFF partnership to expand to as many as 50 countries with health and nutrition needs and contribute to saving and improving millions of lives by 2030.

According to a press release copied to ghanabusinessnews.com, the GFF says it 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 have been chronically and persistently de-prioritized and underfunded—resulting in the preventable deaths of five million women and children every year.

It added that 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.

It notes further that Burkina Faso reaffirmed its commitment to allocating at least 15 per cent of its annual budget to improve health; Côte d’Ivoire committed to increasing its health budget 15 per cent annually; and Nigeria recommitted to investing $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.

Commenting, Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway and Co-Chair of the Sustainable Development Goals Advocates said: “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.”

“The GFF is about country-ownership—working with countries to set priorities, and drive domestic resource mobilization. These are the GFF’s great strengths. It makes the most compelling case for why countries must lead and put their own money on the table, and it reinforces the prioritization of resource allocation for basic social sectors, particularly the health sector,” said Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, President of Burkina Faso.

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

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

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