Islamabad: The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Health Organization on Tuesday announced a collaborative strategy to strengthen the global health security platform in a major move towards building up global health security.
Through the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust,
This partnership will empower countries to be proactive in the prevention, detection, and response to public health threats. Upon this trust, low interest and long-term financing will be accorded to eligible member countries that will enable them to undertake reforms regarding the basic directions they should take to completely address the root structural challenge to economic stability – pandemics, among others. The partnership also aims to further increase the resilience of health systems around the world.
It will involve implementing timely and effective policymaking and financial management reforms-a critical factor in proactively tackling health emergencies, as reaffirmed in the joint press release. Also under this framework, member countries will strive for strengthening their health systems’ resilience and response capacities to a wider range of health crises.
The collaboration would be important,
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said, citing “This partnership will enable our institutions to complement and leverage each other’s expertise, assisting our members in strengthening pandemic preparedness and enhancing the resilience of their health systems.”.
To this end, the Director-General of WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, remarked:
“The Covid-19 pandemic has given us a powerful reminder that has accelerated the urgent need to look at new sources of financing to strengthen health systems, build their capacity, prevent, detect, and respond to epidemics and pandemics.”.
WHO is pleased to partner with the IMF and the World Bank in unlocking financing from the Resilience and Sustainability Trust, so that countries can put these funds to work towards a safer world,” he said.
This collaboration will provide an important step toward making health systems around the globe more resilient and toward building international cooperation in facing future health challenges.