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UNITED NATIONS. — World Bank president Jim Yong Kim announced on Monday that the Bank Group would invest at least US$700 million by the end of 2015 to help developing countries reach the Millennium Development Goals for women and children’s health.
The funding will come from the International Development Association, the Bank Group’s fund for the poorest countries, and will enable national scale-ups of successful pilot projects that were made possible by support from the Bank Group’s Health Results Innovation Trust Fund and IDA, the World Bank noted in a statement.
“We need to inject greater urgency into our collective efforts to save more women and children’s lives, and evidence shows that results-based financing has significant impact,” said Kim at a high-level forum at the United Nations.
“The World Bank Group is committed to using evidence-based approaches to help ensure that every woman and every child can get the affordable, quality health care necessary to survive and live a healthy, productive life,” he added.
The announcement follows Kim’s September 2012 commitment to help boost funding for the MDGs as part of the UN Secretary-General’s “Every Woman Every Child” global partnership.
Reducing child mortality and improving maternal health by 2015 are two of the Millennium Development Goals, a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and leading development institutions.
The World Bank said through results-based financing, the Bank Group is working with countries to shift the focus from paying for inputs to paying for results.
Payment to health service providers is explicitly tied to the successful delivery and independent verification of pre-agreed results.
The World Bank also called for further progress on women and children’s health, which it said will require a comprehensive approach to strengthening health systems, including investments beyond the health sector in critical areas such as water and sanitation, education systems, and labour markets. — Xinhua.
Online Reporter