The response to the COVID-19 pandemic must be coherent and long-term. The risk is of taking a truncated approach, focusing only on short-term needs and interests, and pitting health safety and CSU against each other. Responding adequately to pandemics is a key...
Sierra Leone has a population of 6.6 million, and around 90% of the labour force in the country works in the informal sector, mostly subsistence or other small-scale agriculture. The extremely low gross domestic product per capita fuels the permanent fiscal deficit of...
The Government’s quick and decisive actions to contain COVID-19 prevented a larger outbreak and saved lives, yet they also came at an economic cost. Containment measures disrupted the transport of goods within the country, with a heavy impact on the services sector....
Sierra Leone received an additional US$8.5 million grant to support affordable and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. The funds will provide upfront financing to help purchase and deploy coronavirus vaccines, and to strengthen relevant health systems necessary for...
In 2010 the Government of Sierra Leone established the Free Health Care Initiative removing user fees (on drugs and consultations) for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under five. The major objective of the scheme, as far as health financing was...
Although remarkable progress has been made in improving health outcomes over the past decade, Malawi still faces challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic could reverse the gains in the health sector in Malawi. Due to the pandemic, there has been a reduction in the use of...
In Malawi primary healthcare services are provided for free at point of use in all government facilities and selected Christian Association of Malawi facilities through service level agreements). In practice, however, around 70% of the services provided at tertiary...
The government of Malawi received an additional $30million to support the acquisition and deployment of safe, affordable and effective COVID-19 vaccines. This is an additional financing for the existing Malawi’s COVID-19 emergency response and health...
A petition by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) was delivered to the Malawi government through parliament lobbying for a supplementary budget for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines, sufficient to reach 11 million individuals. The CSOs led by Aids Healthcare...
Thai cabinet has approved a 42-billion-baht package of financial assistance for people and businesses affected by the government's partial Covid-19 lockdown, currently implemented in Bangkok and nine other provinces to contain the coronavirus outbreak. For more...
The Malawi health sector is predominantly donor funded (about 58% of the total health expenditure). To ensure reliable and sustainable financing of the health sector, the government of Malawi has embarked on a number of reforms through innovative health financing. One...
Malaysia announced a public spending 150 billion ringgit ($36.2 billion) for aid and stimulus package to battle the COVID-19 outbreaks. Moreover, Malaysia plans to allocate another 1 billion ringgit ($241 million) to ramp up its inoculation program,...
In an effort to accelerate fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, the World Bank is providing additional financing to the Ethiopia COVID-19 Emergency Response Project in the form of a grant totaling $207 million to finance vaccine acquisition and deployment...
The government of Zambia has been approved to get additional financing of $24 million to acquire and equitably distribute COVID-19 vaccines. Of the total amount, $14 million is credit provided by the International Development Association (IDA), and $10 million is...
Ensuring adequate access to quality health services, whether preventative or curative, is critical for a country to ensure that its population attain better health outcomes. In this context, universal health coverage (UHC), embedded within sustainable development...
