Global Fund Joins New Innovative Financing Partnership
17 May 2013
NEW YORK - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria agreed to participate in a new partnership to leverage private sector funding to speed delivery and expand access to health supplies such as contraceptives, bed nets, and medicines.
The Pledge Guarantee for Health, is a new financing mechanism that will help increase the impact of each dollar of donor funding and ultimately improve healthcare access and outcomes for millions of people. The initiative was announced at the GBC Health Conference in New York, where leading global health and development experts from the public and private sectors convened.
"The Global Fund has undergone a number of enhancements in our process and we are joining efforts with partners like Pledge Guarantee for Health to not only accelerate delivery of essential health commodities but also to increase value for money," said Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund.
Developed and incubated by the United Nations Foundation, the Pledge Guarantee for Health facilitates innovative financing that expedites the disbursement of donor funds, making global health supplies more accessible and more affordable for developing countries.
"Pledge Guarantee for Health works because it delivers aid faster, saving millions of lives," said Kathy Calvin, President and CEO of the United Nations Foundation. "While the financial mechanisms may be complex, the goal of PGH is simple: to quickly and effectively reduce deaths from easily preventable diseases."
The United States Agency for International Development and the Swedish International Agency for Development Cooperation are providing a 5-year partial guarantee to help speed up the procurement of essential medicines and health supplies by governments and civil society partners. In collaboration with commercial banking partners, this partial guarantee enables the Pledge Guarantee for Health to access $100 million in credit that, over 5 years, can mobilize tremendous lending capacity.
"We all have to think creatively and collaboratively, through partnerships like PGH, to bring stakeholders together and focus on delivering more donor value for money," said Anders Nordström, Ambassador for Global Health in the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Recognizing the potential for increased access and affordability that accelerated financing can provide, private sector suppliers such as Merck and Co., Inc., known as MSD outside the U.S. and Canada, and Vestergaard Frandsen agreed to provide up-front price discounts to aid recipients who utilize PGH to purchase their life-saving health supplies.