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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Senior Health Reporter
The Global Fund has in the past 14 years approved over US$2 billion to support the interventions of the Ministry of Health and Child Care for HIV, malaria and TB as well as strengthening health systems.
Of this amount, at least US$1,9 billion has been disbursed with the current grants for TB, malaria and HIV expected to continue to December this year.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been the principal recipient for the Global Fund Project since 2009. Initially UNDP was the principal recipient for the TB, malaria and HIV grants and is currently the principal recipient for the HIV grant.
In an interview, UNDP Programme Manager Mr Emmanuel Boadi said an additional US$504 million would be provided for a new three-year project that would run until December 2026 as the programme was extended for another three years.
“We have a whole component on resilient and sustainable systems for health. It is that component that supports infrastructure activities, supply chain, mainly the pharmaceutical supply chain, and laboratory chain strengthening activities and that is why we are supporting the construction of warehouses,” he said.
The Global Fund was supporting the construction of NatPharm warehouses of which work on the one in Masvingo had already been completed while the warehouse in Mutare was now 90 percent complete.
“We have also completed renovation and construction of pharmacy stores at close to 300 health facilities. As we speak we have about 130 that are ongoing. These are all part of the supply chain strengthening activities,” added Mr Boadi.
The Global Fund is the largest multilateral provider of grants for strengthening systems for health. The Fund has been investing in the treatment and prevention of HIV, TB, malaria as well as Covid-19. It supports countries to respond to the diseases, while improving overall health systems by boosting the quality of care, data tracking, accountability and governance, and service delivery.
Mr Boadi said Zimbabwe had also received support in terms of pandemic preparedness.
“The fund also helped the country to prepare for any pandemic we may experience. We have even started the pandemic preparedness before Covid and now it has become very key,” he said.
The other project being supported by the Global Fund is the Solar for Health programme which has seen solar systems being installed in 1 044 health facilities across the country. The project aims to provide continuous availability of power for health facilities to ensure health service delivery.
To date US$20 million has been channelled towards the solar project which has had a positive impact on healthcare delivery especially in rural facilities that had no access to electricity or electricity back up.
“Electricity is very important. You need power all the time to power the cold chain, for the labs as part of quality health service delivery, to make sure that all your health products are stored in the WHO recommended conditions. We also need power for the health information because you need timely data to analyse and inform decision-making,” said Mr Boadi.
“We will continue to mobilise resources to ensure that all of the over 1 700 health facilities are provided with solar installations. To help the Ministry in the short to medium term to have in place a sustainability plan. We want to ensure that when the lifespan of these batteries and components come to an end, the Government will have enough resources to replace them. We are working with Government, private sector, external entities to have a plan in place to make sure when this programme ends they will continue to have funding to sustain the investments put in place.”
Online Reporter