WASHINGTON, February 29, 2024 — A new program will improve healthcare and nutrition services for about 4.6 million people, especially women, children and adolescents in 63 districts of Mozambique, thanks to a new 4-year program co-funded by the World Bank and the Global Financing Facility** (GFF), approved today.
“Building Mozambique’s resilience starts by providing better healthcare to children and mothers through a health system that keeps delivering even amidst climate shocks,” noted Idah Z. Pswarayi-Riddihough, World Bank Country Director for Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, Comoros, and Seychelles. “Investing in health, education, and women’s and girls’ empowerment is critical to increasing the well-being and productivity of tomorrow’s working-age adults.”
The program is financed through a $100 million grant from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) and an additional $15 million grant from the GFF. The Ministry of Health will use this support to strengthen local health teams, upgrade health centers, bring in digital tools to train health workers, manage medicine supplies more efficiently, and improve lab tests. The program will also focus on efforts to meet the health needs of women and adolescents, including through school and community-based programs, provide nutrition for young children, and tackle both infectious and non-communicable diseases, including cervical cancer.
“Mozambique has come a long way in improving basic health services and reducing mortality over the last twenty years,” added Ernest Massiah, World Bank Health Practice Manager for Eastern and Southern Africa. “However, Mozambique’s health system still struggles to provide good, fast, timely, and relevant health services to all. This new effort aims to support the transformation of the health system, making it stronger against weather-related challenges and more energy-smart by using digital and green energy options. This will help ensure that the most at-risk groups, including women, adolescents, and children living in rural areas, have continuous access to good healthcare.”
As of 2015, more than half of all deaths were due to communicable diseases, pregnancy complications and childbirth-related conditions, newborn asphyxia and infections, and poor nutrition. Malaria remains a major problem, especially for children, causing more than a third of their deaths. Stunting is excessively high, affecting over one in three children under five years of age, and about half of Mozambique’s population may struggle to access clean water. Quality healthcare is still insufficient, hard to reach, and not evenly distributed among genders and geographic regions.
The program will prioritize vulnerable people across 63 districts in 10 provinces to respond to these challenges. Of the 4.6 people expected to benefit from these efforts, 1.5 million are children under the age of five, 2.3 million are women (aged 15-49), and over half a million are adolescent girls.
“This grant will bring services and commodities closer to the women and adolescents living in the hardest to reach communities and expand the sexual and reproductive health services available,” said Luc Laviolette, Head of the GFF Secretariat. “Working in close partnership with UNFPA and other partners, this is an important step to support Mozambique’s leadership in meeting family planning needs and availability of commodities."
The project supports the government’s five-year plan (Programa Quinquenal do Governo 2020-2024) and fully aligns with the forthcoming long-term national development plan (Estratégia Nacional de Desenvolvimento 2023-2043).
*The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), established in 1960, helps the world’s poorest countries by providing grants and low to zero-interest loans for projects and programs that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor people’s lives. IDA is one of the largest sources of assistance for the world’s 74 poorest countries, 39 of which are in Africa. Resources from IDA bring positive change to the 1.3 billion people who live in IDA countries. Since 1960, IDA has provided $496 billion to 114 countries. Annual commitments have increased steadily and averaged about $34.7 billion over the last three years (FY20-FY22), with about 70 percent going to Africa. Learn more online: IDA.worldbank.org. #IDAworks
**The GFF is a country-led partnership, hosted by the World Bank, that fights poverty and inequity by advancing the health, rights and opportunities of women, children and adolescents. It does this by supporting low- and lower-middle-income countries to strengthen their health systems and improve the quality of and access to health care through prioritized plans, aligned financing, and policy reform. Since partnering with the GFF, countries have reached: 100 million pregnant women with four or more antenatal care visits; 130 million women with safe delivery care; 135 million newborns with early initiation of breastfeeding; 630 million women and adolescents with modern contraceptives, preventing 230 million unintended pregnancies.
