• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Global Fund, PharmAccess partners to accelerate health systems, disease treatment in Africa

health insurance

The Global Fund has signed a partnership agreement with Stichting PharmAccess Group to support African countries in building innovative, scalable health insurance models and extending coverage to people living with HIV by harnessing the power of digital technology.

The signing ceremony took place on Thursday 9th of May 2019 at the on-going Financial Times Future of Health Conference at the KIT Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The conference organized by the Financial Times in partnership with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Joep Lange Institute 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).

This 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 which happens to be the main focus of this conference.

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

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.

Monique Dolfing-Volgelenzang, the CEO of Stichting PharmAccess Group, at this landmark signing ceremony 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 Universal Health Coverage.”

Jide Idris, the Commissioner of Health for Lagos State Nigeria, who was also present at the partnership signing ceremony was pleased at this development because of the state’s strong relations with both organizations. “Lagos State is a Principal Recipient of the Global Fund and PharmAccess remains a trusted technical partner for implementing the grant to optimize the state health insurance scheme using digital technology,” Idris added.

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

The Country Director of PharmAccess Foundation 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.

 

IFEOMA OKEKE