The World Bank has announced that it is providing over $4 billion for the purchase and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines for 51 developing countries, half of which are in Africa.
According to the global Bank’s newsletter obtained by ZANIS this evening, more than half of the financing comes from the International Development Association (IDA), the Bank’s fund for the world’s poorest countries, and is on grant or highly concessional terms.
This financing is part of the Bank’s commitment to help low- and middle-income countries acquire and distribute vaccines and strengthen their health systems.
The World Bank reiterated its call to governments, pharmaceutical companies, and organizations involved in vaccine procurement and delivery to help increase transparency and build greater public information regarding vaccine contracts, options and agreements; vaccine financing and delivery agreements; and doses delivered and future delivery plans.
It asked those countries , such as Zambia, anticipating excess vaccine supplies in the coming months to release their surplus doses and options as soon as possible, in a transparent manner, to developing countries with adequate distribution plans in place.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Bank Group has approved more than $150 billion to fight the health, economic, and social impacts of the pandemic.
Since April 2020, the Bank has scaled up its financing by over 50 percent, helping more than 100 countries meet emergency health needs, strengthen pandemic preparedness, while also supporting countries as they protect the poor and jobs, and jump starting a climate-friendly recovery.
“The World Bank is helping developing countries in every region of the world with vaccine purchase and rollout,” said Axel van Trotsenburg,?World Bank Managing Director of Operations.
“Significant challenges still remain regarding vaccine deployment and hesitancy. We are taking action on all fronts to tackle these challenges, working in solidarity with international and regional partners to expedite doses to as many people as possible and to enhance disease surveillance, preparedness, and response,” he added.
The $4 billion is supporting COVID-19 vaccination efforts in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Comoros, the Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC).
Others are Ecuador, El Salvador, Eswatini, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, the Kyrgyz Republic, Lao PDR, Lebanon and Lesotho, respectively.
Madagascar, Malawi, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, São Tomé e Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Togo, Tunisia, Ukraine, Yemen, and Zambia are also among the identified countries to be supported.
The Bank’s vaccine finance package is designed to be flexible. It can be used by countries to acquire doses through COVAX, the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) or other sources.
It also finances vaccine deployment and health system strengthening, such as vaccine cold-chains, training health workers, data and information systems, and communications and outreach campaigns to key stakeholders which are crucial to ensure vaccination acceptance.
The Bank has aligned its eligibility criteria for COVID-19 vaccines with the revised eligibility criteria of COVAX and other multilateral partners.
According to the newsletter, the World Bank is partnering with the African Union and the World Bank-supported Africa Center for Disease Control to support AVATT initiative with resources to allow countries to purchase and deploy vaccines for up to 400 million people across Africa.
The Bank is also convening a task force with the IMF, WHO, WTO, and other partners to track, coordinate, and advance delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries.
The Bank continues to work with governments and partners (UNICEF, the Global Fund, WHO, and GAVI) to assess the readiness of over 140 developing countries to deploy vaccines.
Then you have some dum cader PF resident rats on LT claiming colonialists want regime change to take minerals by sponsoring UPND ……. or writing in amnesty international…….bla bla bla ……..
If that were the case that they wanted regime change , It would be much easier for those imaginary colonialists to simply withhold aid to zambias health care system, which would collapse in 3 months….
Literally waiting for handouts without shame this is legacy that lazy man is going to leave behind…when it comes to working Lazy Lungu will just declare holidays any how. The likes of World Bank knows that this money is coming to their Western countries in the form of more skilled jobs and R&D
NO WORDS AREADY SAID ABOVE
PF HAS TO GO
whats this IVE JUST BEEN TOLD lUNGU GIVING ANOTHER 2 HOLIDAYS ON TOP OF THOSE COMING UP
A FAILED ECONOMY DOESNT HE UNDERSTAND WE HAVE TO PUT IN MORE HOURS TO GET BACK LOST TIME
Only a coon or what they term a house negro can call these handouts, when those who are woke understand and know that those countries upnd diasporans have run to where built and developed on the backs of black slaves and africas resources. Those of us who are enlightened know that this amount is a drop in the ocean of the theft and slavery imposed against Africans. So today I don’t say thank you for this but I say continue giving back what you owe us.
The reason to take care of our resources today and tomorrow. What happened in the past just brings sorrow. They took our wealth[copper, cobalt, silver and Gold] and we have no say over the trillion dollars generated. The reason we should never again sale our resources for a song. This is the reason not to vote for UNPD. Not that we hate HH, we just say never again ‘” sale our resources for a song. ”
The POMPWE’s will probably steal the donations and try to sale them back to the poor citizens for a profit. Zambians vote wisely!
If World bank would not have said that they
Are helping poor countries with vaccines we
Could be saying wehave been buying it.
Most of the meds are also given to us free and yet we don’t have them in our hospitals.
Just look at the PF mentality above………
Free things without having to work……..dependence syndrome
They have even passed on this dependence syndrome to Zambians with empowerment handouts
True to their
” free money in your pockets in 3 months ” manifesto , stealing for free handouts has replaced any work ethic.
Zambia needs atleast 15 years to recover from these theives…….
Regardless, PF wins this year’s election whether spaka or akaps likes it or not; Whether covid or not; whether malaria or not; whether world bank donation or not.
We are gonna beat the hell out’a perennial and quint annual losers whether sunlight or darkness. Whether they like it or not.
So say the elite people of this great and respectable nation.
I am back to give PF a top notch vote!