By Aminu Magashi Garba
Monday July 13, 2015 witnessed the launch of the much awaited Global Financing Facility (GFF) in support of Every Woman Every Child by the United Nations Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-moon in partnership with African heads of states and leaders of international development organisations. The ceremony took place at the Africa Hall of the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Health Reporters Publisher Dr Aminu Magashi Garba was in attendance and reported that the United Nations, the World Bank Group, and the Governments of Canada, Norway and the United States joined country and global health leaders to launch the Global Financing Facility (GFF) in support of Every Woman Every Child, and announced that $12 billion in domestic and international, private and public funding has already been aligned to country-led five-year investment plans for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health in the four GFF front-runner countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
Launched at the Third International Financing for Development Conference, the GFF is a key financing platform in support of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health and the Sustainable Development Goals.
At the launch, the World Bank Group announced a new GFF partnership with its International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) to raise funds from capital markets for countries with significant funding gaps for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH). This ground-breaking partnership expects to mobilize between $3 to $5 dollars from the private capital markets for every $1 dollar invested into the GFF. The Government of Canada is jumpstarting this initiative with a $40 million investment towards two focus areas: one that prioritizes strengthening front-line health systems and scaling-up of community health workers, and another that focuses on the control of malaria to reduce child mortality.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canada, Japan, and the United States announced new financing commitments totalling $214 million. This is in addition to commitments previously made by Norway and Canada of $600 million and $200 million, respectively, to the World Bank Group-managed GFF Trust Fund.
The GFF has set in motion an unprecedented movement among countries, United Nations agencies and multilateral agencies including the World Bank Group, the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the Gavi Alliance, as well as public and private sector financiers and civil society organizations, to increase and align funding in support of countries’ health priorities and plans, to drive transformative improvements in the health of women, children and adolescents everywhere. Today’s announcements are a first step to help close the $33.3 billion annual funding gap for RMNCAH.
During the ceremony the GFF partners also announced the next group of eight countries to benefit from the GFF, with the goal of supporting 62 high-burden low- and lower-middle income countries within five years. The GFF is adding Bangladesh, Cameroon, India, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda as the second wave of GFF countries.
A key aim of the GFF is to mobilize private sector resources that, in addition to public sector resources, help close gaps in the financing of essential interventions required to improve the health of women, children and adolescents. To this end, the GFF is partnering with the World Bank Group’s IBRD to raise funds from capital markets for countries with significant funding gaps for RMNCAH.
