Three Months, US$620 Million: New Money Mobilized for Health in Mozambique
February 26, 2018
Over the past three months, Mozambique has seen a dramatic influx of resources aimed at strengthening the country's health system, reaching underserved populations, and financing essential health services. For Mozambique—where nearly 40 percent of the adult population is unemployed and life expectancy hovers around 55 years of age—the money, US$620 million in total, comes at a good time.
In December 2017, the World Bank announced an injection of US$105 million for Mozambique's Primary Health Care Strengthening Program-for-Results—a project intended to improve the utilization and quality of reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent health and nutrition services, primarily in underserved areas. Most of the non-conditional grant (US$80 million) comes from the International Development Association—the World Bank's fund for the poorest—with the remaining US$25 million coming from the Global Financing Facility. This announcement arrives on the heels of efforts by the USAID- and PEPFAR-funded Health Policy Plus (HP+) project to assist the Mozambican government to develop an "investment case" to demonstrate the potential benefits of reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent health investment for the country. The investment case is the result of consultations about priority interventions to help increase service effectiveness, stimulate user demand, and strengthen the health system—initiatives that are needed to improve maternal and neonatal mortality rates, while sustaining progress on reducing infant mortality.
Less than two months later, in early February 2018, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (Global Fund) announced the launch of six new grants, for a combined US$515 million, to accelerate epidemic control of HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria in Mozambique. The grants, covering the period 2018−2020, will focus on reducing the rates of:
- Malaria death and sickness by 40 percent by 2022
- HIV infections and HIV-related deaths by 40 percent by 2020
- Tuberculosis deaths by 50 percent by 2020
HP+ assisted the Mozambican government in preparing its Global Fund application, which relied on HP+'s technical assistance for the costing analysis and the monitoring and evaluation indicators for the country's proposed HIV and tuberculosis applications.
The significant investment of US$620 million in Mozambique's health sector will have a real and lasting impact on the country, helping the government and its partners make significant progress toward achieving their goals and improving treatment and prevention efforts that will impact the lives of millions of Mozambicans.
