Global Financing Facility

The global community has made considerable progress over the past 25 years in improving the health and well-being of women, children, and adolescents. Rates of preventable death have dropped significantly in many countries and improvements have been seen across a range of key measures of health and well-being. But the progress has not been enough: too many women, children, and adolescents have been left behind, dying and suffering from preventable conditions, in considerable part because of a large financing gap, estimated at US$33 billion annually. 

​The Global Financing Facility in Support of Every Woman Every Child (GFF) was launched at the Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa in July 2015 as part of a global conversation about how to finance the SDGs, which requires a shift from thinking about billions of dollars to recognizing that we need trillions to achieve the ambitious targets that we have agreed upon. This shift is only possible through new approaches to financing that recognize that countries themselves are the engines of progress and that the role of external assistance is to support countries both to get more results from the existing resources and to increase the total volume of financing. Over the past three years, the GFF has created a new model with countries in the driver’s seat that brings together multiple sources of financing in a synergistic way to support national priorities. A key element of this model is drawing on the other sectors that influence health and nutrition outcomes, such as education, water and sanitation, and social protection. The GFF supports countries to get on a trajectory to achieve the SDGs by:

• Strengthening dialogue among key stakeholders under the leadership of governments and supporting the identification of a clear set of priority results that all partners commit their resources to achieving;
• Getting more results from existing resources and increasing the total volume of financing from four sources: domestic government resources, financing from IDA and IBRD, aligned external financing, and private sector resources; and
• Strengthening systems to track progress, learn, and course-correct.

The GFF recently held its first replenishment for the GFF Trust Fund to respond to the demand from countries that want to be part of the GFF. It has to date mobilized an additional US$1.05 billion to enable the GFF process to be expanded over the period 2018–23 to 50 countries facing the most significant needs.  The opportunity for impact is enormous: these countries collectively account for 96 percent of the US$33 billion annual financing gap and 5.2 million maternal and child deaths each year, with billions of dollars lost each year to poor health.

The GFF partnership, including its external relations strategy, is led by the GFF Director; the day-to-day management of the GFF team is the responsibility of the GFF Practice Manager. The GFF Secretariat, which is based at the World Bank and is situated in the HNP Global Practice, works to deliver on the GFF objectives.  This includes working with countries to develop quality investment cases, managing the GFF Trust Fund, technical assistance to regional teams, and support to the GFF Investors Group, the governance mechanism for the GFF.  

Results driven approach: The GFF is dedicated to improving country-level health data collection and financial information management systems (resource tracking) to improve advocacy efforts and program management decisions at all levels in the healthcare system. Our aim is to increase the demand for high quality data and meaningful country driven data-use for improved RMNCAH-N outcomes and health financing reforms. Our focus is to strengthen national systems, working in collaboration with other health stakeholders to avoid duplicity and invest in catalytic systems areas to increase data quality, use and demand.

Responsibilities of the Unit: The GFF Secretariat is responsible for supporting the activities of the GFF, including managing the GFF Trust Fund and supporting the GFF Investors Group, the governance mechanism for the GFF.  The Secretariat is based at the World Bank, situated in the HNP Global Practice. The GFF team is responsible for supporting countries to develop and monitor  their RMNACH-N investment case by assessing the cost-effectiveness of RMNCAH-N program and identifying areas for improvement during implementation for real-time course correction, as well as to ensure accountability to those affected by RMNCAH-N outcomes as well as to those providing resources (governments at all levels, CSO, donors, other stakeholders).

SCOPE OF WORK:

The main objective of the GFF Country Focal point is to support the national government of a country in the implementation of the GFF process in a manner that will meet its needs to improve the health and nutrition of women, adolescents and children.  This involves both advice and assistance to catalyze and harmonize support from a range of stakeholders engaged in-country (civil society organizations, private sector, bilateral and multilateral financiers, technical partners, etc.) as well as coordinating the various streams of support that is provided by the GFF Secretariat within a country.  The specific objectives of the GFF Country Focal Point are to:

• Define GFF value proposition:  Enable the government to develop, along with key stakeholders, a common vision of the specific areas of value addition and focus of the GFF in the country;
• Institutional arrangements:  Work with the national government to define the institutional arrangements that will guide the GFF process.
• Country platform:  Work closely with the GFF Liaison Officer to ensure that there is a functioning national platform that serves to guide the GFF process in the country.    
• Investment case preparation process:  Guide the development of a roadmap for the preparation of the investment case.  Ensure that all aspects of the roadmap are financed, either directly by the GFF trust fund or by the government and its partners. 
• Health financing work plan:  Ensure the Secretariat works with the government and stakeholders to develop a health financing work plan that complements the investment case.
• World Bank relations:  Manage the overall Secretariat relationship with the World Bank TTL(s) and other staff working in the country. 
• GFF-financed project(s):  Play an active role as team member in the preparation and supervision of the GFF co-financed World Bank operation(s) in the country.    
• Communications:  Work with the Liaison Officer to ensure there is adequate communication about the GFF process in-country. 
• Monitoring:  Given the centrality of data for decision making to the GFF value proposition, the Focal Point will coordinate systematic support from the Secretariat in this area.