By Okeoghene Akubuike
The Heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank Group (WBG), and the World Health Organization (WHO) have agreed on broad principles for cooperation on pandemic preparedness.
This is according to a statement by the IMF, a copy obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday.
The statement said the cooperation would allow a scaling up of support to countries to prevent, detect and respond to public health threats.
It said it would be done through the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST), the WBG’s financial and technical support, and WHO’s technical expertise and in-country capabilities.
The statement said the RST allowed eligible member countries to access long-term financing at low interest rates.
“This financing helps implement reforms that address structural challenges to the stability of the economy such as those posed by pandemics, and to enhance countries’ health systems resilience.”
It said operating within their respective mandates and policies, the IMF, the WBG, and WHO would leverage their expertise to enhance pandemic preparedness in their member countries.
The statement said the organisations would achieve this by building on the synergies and complementarity of each institution’s in-country analysis and operations.
“This collaboration will strengthen the design and articulation of effective policy, institutional and public financial management reforms supported by the IMF’s RSF.
“Also by the policy reforms and investments supported by the WBG, and the technical and operational support provided by WHO.
“In strengthening the pandemic preparedness framework, member countries will also work to improve the resilience of their health systems and their ability to respond better to all health emergencies.”
The statement quoted Kristalina Georgieva, IMF’s Managing Director as saying, “the stepped-up collaboration with the WBG and the WHO will help our institutions complement and leverage each other’s expertise.
“This will help our members strengthen pandemic preparedness and enhance the resilience of their health systems.
“The IMF’s RST allows eligible member countries to access affordable, long-term financing to address structural challenges that threaten their macroeconomic stability, “she said.
Also, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General was quoted as saying:
“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for new sources of financing to bolster health systems to make them more able to prevent and detect epidemics and pandemics and to respond and withstand them when they strike.
“WHO is proud to be working with the IMF and the World Bank to unlock financing from the RST, and support countries to put it to work for a safer world,” he said.
The statement quoted WBG’s President, Ajay Banga as saying, “we must aggressively be planning and preparing for the next global health crisis.
“So that when the battle comes and we know it will, we will have the health workforce that can be rapidly deployed in the face of a crisis.
“We will also have laboratories that can quickly ramp up testing, and surge capacity that can be called upon to respond.
“This deepened collaboration focuses our response on helping countries better prepare and respond to public health threats,” he said. (NAN)
