Leaders Commit New Finance to Tackle Women’s and Children’s Health in the Developing World
23 Sep 2009
An innovative health financing taskforce set up by world leaders twelve months ago is today announcing a series of new financing measures worth US$5.3 billion to save millions of women and children in developing countries, whose lives are under increased threat during the global economic crisis
10 million more women and children will get access to free health care following today’s announcements.
The innovative financing proposals will build on progress that has been made over the past ten years to improve the quality of health for millions of the world’s poorest people, but now faces the threat of being reversed as a result of the global downturn.
The meeting, co-chaired by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and World Bank President Robert Zoellick, marks the culmination of a year’s work by the Taskforce on Innovative Financing for Health Systems, launched by Brown and Zoellick last year, and the agreement reached this year to a Global Consensus on Maternal, Newborn and Child health. The meeting will highlight the need for stronger, better financed health systems, and better access to health services for women and children.
Government and business leaders are expected to announce support for a number of recommendations:
· A US$1 billion expansion of the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm)
· A new mechanism for making voluntary contributions when buying airline tickets, expected to raise up to US$3.2 billion by 2015
· US$515 million for results-based funding programmes for health
· US$360 million worth of debt conversions – Debt2Health
· Launch of a VAT tax credit pilot scheme called De-Tax, expected to raise up to US$220 million a year in VAT resources
· The commitment to explore a second Advance Market Commitment for life-saving vaccines
· New commitments by leaders of
Gordon Brown told international leaders that there were two roadblocks to progress on maternal and child health: a lack of resources, and the presence of user fees. Speaking at the meeting of 700 global delegates, entitled Healthy Women, Healthy Children: Investing in our common future,
“We cannot let mothers and children die through lack of finance and through the persistence of user fees. The US$5.3 billion raised by the Taskforce, and the leadership of the countries mean that today is an historic step towards the goal of universal health care in Asia and
World Bank President, Robert Zoellick underlined the importance of creating new income streams to improve health care for mothers and children saying that the launch of new financing initiatives to help generate the income and the systems will ultimately stem the unnecessary and preventable deaths of women and children around the world.
Source: World Bank
