Global Fund, PharmAccess seal pact on scalable models

Global Fund has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Stichting PharmAccess Group, to support African countries in building innovative, scalable health insurance models while promoting Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

The partnership will accelerate the achievement of the goal of universal health coverage and the SDGs by building resilient, sustainable, and inclusive systems for health leveraging on digital technology, according to a statement.

The Global Fund is the largest multilateral provider of grants to build resilient and sustainable systems for health, which underpin universal health coverage. System strengthening Interventions include investments in supply chain, data and service delivery integration.

The signing ceremony, which took place at the Financial Times Future of Health Conference at the KIT Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, brought together governments of several countries, multilateral organisations and global healthcare pioneers to explore how collaboration, mobile technology and innovation can accelerate inclusive and sustainable financing for Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Executive Director, Global Fund, Peter Sands, expressed his delight stating that the partnership will “pave the way for many Africans to access affordable and inclusive universal health coverage.”

The Chief Executive Officer, Stichting PharmAccess Group, Monique Dolfing-Volgelenzang, stressed the importance of the partnership, aimed at “building country capacities in Africa on the implementation of health financing models with the use of mobile technology, pooling various types of funding, in order to fight HIV, TB, and malaria and to reach UHC.”

Lagos State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Jide Idris, who was also present at the partnership signing ceremony, was pleased at this development because of the state’s strong relations with both organizations.

He said Lagos State is a principal recipient of the Global Fund and PharmAccess remains a trusted technical partner for implementing the grant to optimise the state health insurance scheme using digital technology.

He hoped that the partnership between Global Fund and PharmAccess will be an inspiration to other states in Nigeria and other countries.

In her remarks, Country Director, PharmAccess Foundation, Ms. Njide Ndili, expressed great excitement at the partnership noting that “this move would indeed be beneficial to all the Countries we are supporting in Africa, especially in Nigeria where there are huge inequalities in the accessibility of qualitative and quantitative healthcare services”.

PharmAccess is an entrepreneurial and not-for-profit organization of Dutch origin dedicated to connecting more people to better healthcare by supporting improvements in access to affordable and quality healthcare through health financing, delivery and risk pooling using innovation and digital technology especially for low-income and vulnerable groups in Africa.