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 World leaders had agreed to reduce the maternal mortality by
three-quarters and child mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and
2015. However, with one year left, they are falling well short of
the goals.
The Global Financing Facility is designed to accelerate progress by
providing capital for poor countries to develop their healthcare
systems and collect better data on births and deaths.
It is backed by Norway, Canada and the United States in partnership
with the United Nations, the private sector and non-profits.
“This signals our collective resolve as development partners to help
countries push further and faster to bring an end to preventable
maternal and child deaths and extreme poverty,” World Bank President
Jim Yong Kim said on Thursday in announcing the program on the
sidelines of the U.N.’s annual meeting.
The Global Financing Facility will receive initial funding of $800
million from Norway and Canada, while the World Bank plans to
contribute up to $3.2 billion in grants and low-interest loans from
its fund for the poorest countries, the bank said.
The United States development agency USAID said it will provide
expertise in innovative financing and partnering with the private
sector, which it expects will deliver an additional $200 million to
$400 million.
According to the U.N., maternal mortality had dropped by 45 percent
since 1990, to 210 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2013. Yet the
mortality rate in poorer countries is still 14 times higher than in
the developed world, and prospects for rapid improvements by 2015
are slim.
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Deaths of children under-five have declined by a half over the same
time span to 6.3 million in 2013, but the equality gap is huge.
Children born into poverty were almost twice as likely to die as
those from wealthier families, according to the U.N.
The World Health Organization estimates that an extra $5 per person
needs to be invested in healthcare in some of the poorest countries
where child and maternal deaths are the highest - a major investment
for which they lack the resources.
The new financing facility will be based at the World Bank, which
has experience in running a similar health financing initiative. It
is expected to be up and running in 2015, the bank said.
(Reporting by Stella Dawson, Editing by Alisa Tang)
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