FFD3: Global Financing Facility launched to boost maternal and children’s health

12 Billion USD Mobilized for the front runners; Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and DR. Congo

A key financing platform for the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health and the Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Financing Facility (GFF) launched here in Addis Abeba on Monday at the Third International Financing for Development Conference.

Jointly inaugurated by the United Nations, the World Bank Group, and the Governments of Canada, Norway and the United States, the GFF is initiated to Every Woman Every Child, a global movement to operating to tackle health hazards facing women and children.

$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 Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and DR. Congo.

The World Bank Group announced at the launch that 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 which currently amount close to 33.3 billion USD.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canada, Japan, and the United States announced new financing commitments totaling $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 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.