The GAVI Alliance announced a new, “unprecedented” Joint Financing Arrangement (JFA) today with the Government of Nepal to support the implementation of the Nepalese National Health Sector Programme. GAVI said the three year agreement, involving a US$14.5 million contribution from GAVI, “is aimed at providing more predictable funding to the Nepalese Government so that it can better plan health programmes. It is also expected that the JFA will help Nepal deliver health services more equitably and sustainably and to use resources more effectively and efficiently.” Under the JFA’s terms, Nepal’s leading aid donors – GAVI, DFID, AusAid, World Bank, USAID, UNFPA, WHO and UNICEF – “agree to channel their development assistance in support of the Government’s health programmes through one simplified management system that will sharply reduce the reporting that donors require from low-income countries such as Nepal.”  Carole Presern, Managing Director, GAVI Special Projects, commented, “We are shifting countries’ administrative burden to Platform development partners and are confident that a long term and fruitful partnership, as the one we have signed in Nepal, is the way forward for achieving better health outcomes – more services, more health workers, and functioning logistics systems.”

The Health Systems Funding Platform was “established in 2009 at the recommendation of the High Level Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems. The initiative is being developed by the GAVI Alliance, the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria and the World Bank, facilitated by the World Health Organization, and in consultations with countries and other key stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector. The platform is part of a broad international effort to strengthen health systems and accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.”

http://www.gavialliance.org/media_centre/statements/nepal_hsfp.php