World Bank and Britain to launch billion-dollar free health plan

Sep 23, 2009, 15:09 GMT

New York - The World Bank and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday were to announce a global health plan worth 5.3 billion dollars to assist women and children in developing countries hurt by the global economic crisis.

The plan would allow 10 million women and children access to free health care.

Brown and World Bank President Robert Zoellick were to make public their plan at UN headquarters in New York while attending UN General Assembly meetings. The plan builds on progress made in the past 10 years to improve health care for millions of the world's poor, whose lives have further deteriorated because of the on-going global economic crisis.

'We cannot let mothers and children die through lack of finance and through the persistence of user fees,' Brown said in prepared remarks made available in advance of the announcement.

'The 5.3 billion dollars raised by the taskforce, and the leadership of the countries mean that today is an historic step towards the goal of universal health care in Asia and Africa.'

The plan's major goals call for 1 billion dollars to expand the International Finance Facility for Immunization (IFFIm) and a new mechanism for voluntary contributions to the fund when buying airline tickets, which could raise up to 3.2 billion dollars by 2015.

Other goals include raising hundreds of millions of dollars through value added tax (VAT) credit and debt conversions.

Leaders of Nepal, Malawi, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone have pledged to expand free access to health services for an addition 10 million more people.