June 21, 2022
The Board of Directors of the World Bank on Thursday approved additional financing of $20 million for the Project to Strengthen Primary Health Care and Surveillance in Haiti (PROSYS). It aims to increase the use of primary health care services in certain geographical areas and to strengthen disease surveillance capacity, particularly cholera.
“Access to quality health care is fundamental to alleviating the cycle of poverty, strengthening Haiti’s human capital and helping future generations reach their full potential ,” said Laurent Msellati, Chief Operating Officer of the Bank. world in Haiti . “Haiti has successfully eliminated cholera, with no cases detected in the past three years; however, more efforts are needed in other areas, as less than half of children are fully immunized and only a third of women deliver in health facilities.”
In the aftermath of the August 2021 earthquake, the World Bank quickly reallocated $20 million from the PROSYS project to cover approximately 65% of the total cost of reconstruction needs in the health sector valued at $31 million in the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) document. These funds support the reconstruction and rehabilitation of approximately 30 damaged health infrastructures in the three departments affected by the earthquake, including Nippes, Sud and Grand’Anse, directly benefiting more than 650,000 people. The reallocation of funds also makes it possible to provide equipment and supplies to rehabilitated health structures and to support the coordination of actors involved in reconstruction activities in the sector.
This additional funding constitutes a replenishment of the funds reallocated due to the emergency. It will fund targeted activities such as strengthening referral networks to primary health care, providing incentives to health care providers and increasing their accountability through the “results-based financing” program. “. It will also help maintain the government’s national surveillance and response capacity in the fight against infectious diseases such as diphtheria and measles.
The initial project to strengthen primary health care and surveillance in Haiti was approved by the Board of Directors of the World Bank on May 16, 2019, for a general amount of $70 million – $55 million from the International Development Association (IDA) and $15 million from the Global Financing Facility (GFF) – to increase utilization of essential primary health care services and strengthen surveillance capacity.