Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, met today with Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), to discuss the WHO-EIB initiative aiming at promoting an innovative impact investment that will support health systems strengthening in Africa with a focus on Primary Health Care (PHC). A joint statement was released.
WHO welcomed the new EIB commitments to support impact investing, in the context of a new tripartite initiative (WHO-EIB- European Commission), established to support countries across Africa to close the health funding
gap, building resilient health systems based on a solid foundation of PHC, to help them reach health-related SDGs. The EIB President announced € 500 million made available with the aim of mobilizing € 1 billion of new investment
to in this partnership supporting resilient health system strengthening based on PHC.
WHO is joining forces with African partners, the EIB and the European Union to marry this significant investment with WHO’s experience and know-how to build resilient health systems. Innovative financing schemes such as this would
bring together the work of WHO and the EIB, in a broader and systemic partnership combining grants, WHO technical assistance and impact investments.
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Background:
About the European Investment Bank
- The EIB is the European Union’s investment bank and is owned by the EU Member States
- At the beginning of 2022, the EIB has set up a new branch – EIB Global – to develop innovative investments, sustainable living, climate actions, support the EU’s neighbourhood and enlargement policies, etc. The EIB Global
will operate /invest outside of the EU.
About the EIB-WHO partnership, incl. financial information
- In May 2020, the EIB and WHO signed an MOU to scale up their cooperation to strengthen public health, supply of essential equipment, training and hygiene investment in countries most vulnerable to COVID-19. Main areas of cooperation include:
- Improving local public health efforts to tackle coronavirus
- Building resilient health systems in vulnerable countries across Africa
- Long-term collaboration to overcome market failures in global health
- Scaling up investment to tackle antimicrobial resistance
- Improving the effectiveness of malaria treatment
- Strengthening EIB support for healthcare, life science and COVID-19 investment
EIB support for the global COVID -19 response
EIB has contributed significantly to the global response to the pandemic, particularly by means of investments on vaccines development, supporting local manufacturing, and health system resilience. The EIB invested in strong support for improved access to medicines and vaccines in Africa, local production capacity and technology transfer through the SHIRA initiative.