By Haruna Gimba
The Global Financing Facility (GFF) has launched $1.2 billion funding campaign to stop secondary health crisis for women and children due to COVID-19 pandemic.
Health Reporters gathered that the fundraising campaign was to support the world’s poorest countries to protect and “reclaim the gains” on the health of women, children and adolescents made before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The funding will also support communities to access the services they need, helping to save lives, and build the human capital needed for a resilient recovery.
The impact of COVID-19 has laid bare existing vulnerabilities and equity disparities which threaten to grow even wider without urgent action.
Across GFF’s 36 partner countries there has been up to a 25 percent drop in coverage of essential health interventions, hitting women and children the hardest.
In several countries, financial resources for essential health services have been diverted and households impacted by economic hardship cannot afford basic healthcare.
Days after the pandemic was declared, the GFF, alongside its partners, sounded the alarm about the significant disruptions for women, children and adolescents to access lifesaving health and nutrition services.
Many partners, including donors, civil society and the private sector have all stepped up to support vulnerable countries, but now is the time to double down on these efforts. Ongoing GFF-supported country monitoring has reaffirmed significant service delivery disruptions in low- and lower-middle income countries.
New funding to the GFF will build on its ongoing support to partner countries to help strengthen supply chains to secure access to essential medicines and COVID-19 tools, increase the capacity of the community health workforce, scale up innovations in service delivery and scale up cash transfer programs to help the poorest pay for services.
The GFF is working closely with global partners as part of the ACT-Accelerator to help countries prepare for rapid, equitable, and safe delivery of vaccines and tools at scale while ensuring continuity of essential health services. The GFF is also supporting global partners as part of the Generation Equality Forum to ensure that gender equality and the provision of sexual and reproductive health services are part of inclusive recovery efforts.
The GFF’s fundraising campaign will help countries to save an additional 5 million lives by 2025, and 18 million by 2030, through expanded access to essential services.
It was gathered that the $1.2 billion raised will cover the 2021-2023 period and will be channelled through the GFF’s innovative country-led model to help leverage a total of US$52.7 billion to improve health outcomes for women, children and adolescents by 2030.
The 2021 fundraising goal is part of the GFF’s overall $2.5 billion funding target for 2021–2025 that will enable the GFF to expand from 36 to 50 countries, contribute to saving an estimated 18 million lives, and mobilize $52.7 billion in health financing by 2030.
The GFF Trust Fund, directly linked to World Bank IDA and IBRD financing, creates a multiplier effect, by aligning domestic and international resources around costed national plans underpinned by priority reforms and innovations adapted to local contexts.
