How EBID helps the well being and training sectors

(Ecofin Group) – Confronted with funding challenges in well being and training in West Africa, the EBID has strengthened its efforts from 2020 to revive these important however usually uncared for sectors.

The ECOWAS Financial institution for Funding and Growth (EBID) has simply been efficiently closed sustainable and inexperienced bond mortgage, by elevating 70 billion FCFA ($115.7 million) even earlier than the scheduled date. Of this envelope, 7.7 billion FCFA, or 11%, ought to be directed particularly in direction of the well being and training sectors. Steerage that aligns, as a financial institution officer trusting theEcofin Groupon the Financial institution’s strategic plan.

Typically thought-about unattractive by profit-obsessed financiers, the well being and training sectors have lengthy suffered from an absence of considerable funding. Nonetheless, from 2020, the EBID has strengthened its actions in favor of these historically uncared for areas.

On September 11, the establishment primarily based in Lomé had already accredited funding of $15 million for KA Applied sciences in Ghana to offer 1,350,000 digital tablets to excessive faculties and technical and coaching training and coaching establishments. Beforehand, on July 12, 2022, a venture to construct Youth and Citizenship Homes in thirty-eight areas was accredited in Senegal for an quantity of 32.84 billion FCFA. This funding contributes to initiatives reminiscent of the development of a science and know-how college in Koidu, within the Kono district of Sierra Leone, signed on September 11, 2020 for a sum of $32 million, and the development of 135 buses for the advantage of universities and universities . faculties in Burkina Faso.

Within the well being care sector, the dynamic is analogous. In August 2022, a venture to renovate theaters, neonatal intensive care models and imaging providers in referral hospitals in Côte d’Ivoire was signed, following the tools and rehabilitation of well being constructions (PERSS ), a couple of years earlier. The EBID additionally financed the acquisition of medical-technical supplies and tools for well being constructions in Benin and Togo and the development of a polyclinic on the island of Sal in Cape Verde.

Since its creation, the ECOWAS improvement finance establishment has already dedicated at the least $246.7 million straight, together with $113.7 million for training and $133 million for well being. That is according to the imaginative and prescient of its president, Dr George Agyekum Donkor (photograph), for whom well being and training are among the many funding priorities. That is why, as a part of its Strategic Plan 2021-2025, the EBID, which goals to reset its worth proposition, now locations particular emphasis on the training and well being sectors.

For the training sector, the intention is obvious: to make science, know-how, engineering and arithmetic (STEM) training extra attention-grabbing and accessible, whereas enhancing the general high quality of training by way of strategic investments in -structure and tools, entrusting the EBID government to the academic group.Ecofin Group. On the well being facet, he explains that the EBID is attempting to enhance entry to medical care by lowering journey occasions to well being facilities, particularly in massive cities, and by strengthening the capacities of members states to stop and handle well being crises.

The obstacles are actual: insufficient funding, political instability, poor infrastructure… To proceed accelerating the tempo, the EBID doesn’t marketing campaign alone and collaborates intently with different monetary establishments and worldwide organizations to extend the impression of its actions and overcome these challenges. . These partnerships enable it to combine concessional sources from numerous companions, such because the Indian Line of Credit score, to finance main initiatives. Aligned with the Sustainable Growth Objectives (SDGs), specifically the purpose of well being and well-being for all, the EBID intends “Proceed to push the boundaries of what’s potential in training and well being”.