MEDIA RELEASE
Released By:
Smith
Australia will contribute $250 million over 20 years to the expanded International Finance Facility for Immunisation to help the world's poorest countries to deliver better health care to their people.
I announced Australia's commitment today at the event Investing in Our Common Future: Healthy Women, Healthy Children, held at the United Nations in New York and hosted by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and World Bank President Robert Zoellick, Chairs of the High Level Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems.
Many countries do not have the resources to provide even the minimum of essential health services. Poor countries need accelerated assistance to provide these health services now if we are to achieve the health Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The expanded Facility, with support from Australia and other donor countries, will help meet this need.
The International Finance Facility was established at the initiative of the United Kingdom in 2006 as a mechanism to convert long-term aid commitments into immediate funding for health services. The Facility raises funds in international capital markets by issuing Triple-A-rated bonds, backed by legally binding commitments from sponsors like Australia.
Large-scale results are already being achieved through funding from the Facility. In 2007, it helped avert a potentially devastating setback to the 20-year effort to eradicate polio, supporting the immunisation of more than 100 million children under the age of five in eleven polio-affected countries.
The Facility is also supporting yellow fever prevention campaigns in twelve West African countries. The World Health Organization predicts this work will prevent approximately 680,000 deaths between now and 2050 in these high-risk countries.
The expanded Facility will use this proven model to tackle broader health system challenges, such as training health staff, purchasing essential drugs, and providing basic maternal and child health care services, as well as continuing support for immunisation programs.
The Australian Government's commitment, together with others announced by the governments of the United Kingdom, Norway and Netherlands will provide a total of US$1 billion to back substantial new investments in health systems now.