The COVID-19 crisis is reversing years of hard-won gains in women, children and adolescent health. One year on, with disrupted health systems and economies severely impacted, women and children in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries have been hardest hit by this secondary crisis. To help countries reclaim the gains, the Global Financing Facility for Women, Children and Adolescents (GFF), a partnership hosted at the World Bank, has launched a resource mobilization campaign to raise $1.2 billion by the end of 2021 to protect essential health services and strengthen health systems, as countries prepare for the rollout of COVID-19 tools and strive for a resilient and inclusive recovery. The campaign is co-hosted by the governments of Canada and Senegal, along with the World Bank.

Read Op-Ed: Don’t let Covid-19 turn back progress on the health of women and children

Watch the GFF Launch Event ‘Reclaim the Gains’ which took place virtually on May 7, 2021. The event brought together ministers from Canada, Senegal, Netherlands, Norway, Nigeria, and Ethiopia and many other partners and community representatives to discuss the crisis, call for urgent action, and pledge their support to the GFF campaign.

Read Press Release: Global leaders pledge more than USD 200 million to kickstart GFF’s campaign to tackle COVID-19’s secondary health crisis for women, children and adolescents

The problem

With disrupted health systems stretched to breaking point and economies severely impacted, women and children in the world’s poorest countries have been hit the hardest by this secondary crisis.

Health InterventionWoman baby

The pandemic has already disrupted contraceptive use for more than 5 million women and adolescents living in GFF partner countries.

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Severe disruptions in essential health services in GFF partner countries have contributed up to a 25% drop in coverage of lifesaving health interventions since the pandemic struck.

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Restore the progress

Case for investment

The GFF needs $1.2 billion by the end of 2021 to help countries maintain essential services for women, children and adolescents, strengthen health systems as they prepare for the rollout of the COVID-19 tools needed to end the pandemic, recover with greater resilience, and accelerate progress toward the SDGs.

A further US$1.3bn is needed to support the GFF’s work from 2023-2025. This will help meet country demand and enable the GFF to expand to a total of 50 of the world’s poorest countries.

What these investments will achieve:

US $2.5 Billion

New investments in the GFF Trust Fund – including US$1.2 billion frontloaded in 2021 to confront the continuing crisis will:

By 2025

Save 5 million lives

Mobilize US $18.5 billion

  • Enable more than 56 million women to access skilled birth attendants
  • 458 million additional children will receive oral rehydration treatment for diarrhea to prevent major causes of child deaths
  • Enable 25 million additional women and adolescents to gain access to modern methods of contraception to prevent unintended pregnancies

By 2030

Save 18 million lives

Mobilize up to US $52.7 billion

  • Reduce deaths of newborns and children under the age of five by more than one-third of current levels
  • Reduce maternal mortality by almost one third
  • Prevent at least 3 million stillbirths

How the GFF works

The GFF is primed and ready to ensure that the world’s most vulnerable women, children and adolescents are not left behind by the crisis.

Launched in 2015 as a country-led, global partnership and housed at the World Bank, the GFF is squarely focused on supporting countries to prioritize and scale up evidence-driven investments to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and nutrition in the world’s most vulnerable countries through targeted strengthening of service delivery systems—to save lives and as a critical step toward achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Read more about how the GFF works

Take action

  1. Encourage your government to support women, children and adolescent health as a core part of their COVID-19 response and recovery efforts
  2. Write to your Minister of International Development / Minister of Foreign Affairs / MP
  3. Share the campaign on social media
  4. Write an article, opinion piece or blog post

Reclaim the gains

Don’t let COVID-19 turn back progress on the health of women, children, and adolescents.

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