Banking on Health Leverages Almost $43 Million in Commercial Financing
Banking on Health has created unique public private alliances involving multiple actors including financial institutions, private health providers, provider associations, and public sector payers and regulators. These alliances have addressed a number of constraints facing the private health sector, including increasing access to financing, improving market linkages, expanding the sustainable delivery of reproductive health and family planning services and contributing to important policy changes. As of December 31, 2007, alliances with commercial banks and microfinance institutions in Uganda, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Peru and Romania have leveraged almost $43 million in financing for private providers of reproductive health, family planning and other health services.
The Banking on Health Project improves the ability of private health sector businesses to access credit, thereby expanding their capacity to delivery high quality reproductive health and family planning services. Financing is an essential input that assists the private sector to expand the range and types of services, enter new markets and improve services. In many countries in the developing world, the private health sector is not able to access financing from local financing institutions. Banking on Health increases access to financing by working with local financial institutions to promote health sector lending, improving credit-readiness among private health care businesses and improving market linkages. Banking on Health’s work with financial institutions includes market research, training, technical assistance in loan product development, marketing to the health sector and structuring a USAID Development Credit Authority guarantee that reduces the risk of lending to the market. Banking on Health has found that in most countries a relatively limited level of technical assistance has been able to catalyze significant increases in health sector lending. Banking on Health is working in nine countries.
