The United Nations, the World Bank Group, and the Governments of Canada, Norway and the United States joined country and global health leaders on July 13 to launch the Global Financing Facility (GFF) in support of Every Woman Every Child, and announced that $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 the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
The GFF is a new era in development—a breakthrough financing model that weaves together resources from countries themselves, international donors, and the private sector to accelerate advancements in the health of women and children. Because more money directed toward more focused, smarter and country-led investments for women and children creates the healthy populations countries need to prosper. The GFF is a key financing platform in support of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The overall goal of the GFF will be to contribute to the global efforts to end preventable maternal, newborn, child and adolescent deaths and improve the health and quality of life of women, adolescents and children. It is estimated that compared with current trends, an accelerated investment scenario would help prevent a total of 4 million maternal deaths, 107 million child deaths, and 22 million stillbirths between 2015 and 2030 in 74 high-burden countries.
The GFF will mobilise and channel additional international and domestic resources required to scale up and sustain efficient and equitable delivery of quality Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) services. Additionally, the GFF will support the transition to long-term sustainable domestic financing for RMNCAH. A special focus area for the GFF will be to support the scale up of civil registration and vital statistics systems to contribute to universal registration by 2030.
The GFF has five objectives:
- Finance national RMNCAH scale-up plans and measure results;
- Support countries in the transition toward sustainable domestic financing of RMNCAH;
- Finance the strengthening of civil registration and vital statistics systems;
- Finance the development and deployment of global public goods essential to scale up;
- Contribute to a better-coordinated and streamlined RMNCAH financing architecture
A link to the Global Financing Facility in Support of Every Woman Every Child – Concept Note can be found here; a link to the official GFF press release here.