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Leaders commit new finance to tackle women’s and children’s health in the developing world

NEW YORK, 23 September 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 – Global Fund's Debt2Health Initiative

• 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 Nepal, Malawi, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, to expand access to health services. This is expected to result in 10 million more people having access to free health services. Donors will announce new financing to support these commitments.

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, UK PM Gordon Brown said:

“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 Africa”.

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.

Stressing the need for a list of new funding measures from which countries could choose their preferred options, President Zoellick said:

“Innovation can be the key to making significant progress on reaching the MDGs, strengthening health systems, and improving millions of lives – especially the lives of women and children. A good example is our partnership with the GAVI Alliance, the Global Fund, and the WHO to develop a platform to coordinate and channel aid to health systems – including funds from some of the innovative financing mechanisms identified today”.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway, initiator of the World Bank’s Health Results Innovation Trust Fund, emphasized the need to focus on results by helping countries achieve national health plan goals, especially child malnutrition and child and maternal mortality by giving money based upon results.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway said: “The results focus will ensure that women and children will be at the centre of attention in the new effort”.

Joint host of the meeting at the UN the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), today supported the Taskforce’s recommendations, and Flavia Bustreo the Director said:

“While significant progress has been made, a child still dies every three seconds, and a woman dies every minute from complications of pregnancy or childbirth. Urgent action is needed if we are to achieve the promise of the Millennium Development Goals. Greater and new sources of funding are vital, and the Taskforce recommendations go some way to mobilising those finances. It is also crucial that governments in both developed and developing countries fulfil all of their prior funding commitments. The Partnership is committed to accelerating progress and halting these millions of preventable deaths, and we will continue to hold leaders accountable for their commitments.”

Detail of Announcements

• $1bn for a cash injection into health systems through the International Financial Facility for Immunisations (with £250m from UK, £150m from Norway and £130m from Australia).

• Six CEOs from the tourism and travel industry launch a scheme to raise over $3bn by 2015 through voluntary contributions with online travel bookings.

• £250m for a new fund to reward high-performing health programmes with contributions from UK and Norway.

• Launch of a VAT credit pilot scheme in Italy to generate up to €200m in 2010.

• Commitment by GAVI, the Global Fund, the World Bank and WHO to rationalise funding for health systems through a single funding stream to be in place in 7 countries in 2010.

• US$360 million worth of debt conversions – Global Fund's Debt2Health Initiative.

• The commitment to explore a second Advance Market Commitment for life-saving vaccines.

• New commitments from leaders of Nepal, Malawi, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, to expand access to health services. This is expected to result in 10 million more people having access to free health services. Donors will announce new financing to support these commitments.
Country commitments to health as follows:

• Nepal – doubling access to free and safe deliveries for (over a million) more pregnant women

• Burundi – providing (as opposed to promising) free health care to all children under 5 and pregnant women (1.4 million children and 200,000 pregnant women)

• Malawi – extending free health services through government and church-run hospitals to reach 860,000 more people, including 80,000 more free births

• Sierra Leone – launching a new health plan to bring in free health care for women and children

• Ghana – bringing free health care within reach for millions more by abolishing annual premiums and shifting to a single, one-off lifetime payment, with exemptions for pregnant women, children up to eighteen and the elderly

• Liberia – committing to make the suspension of user fees permanent and providing free health care for all, with the help of adequate donor finance Read the Press Release in Full