By Chioma Obinna

The Global Fund has signed a partnership agreement with Stichting PharmAccess Group to support African countries in building innovative, scalable health insurance models and extending coverage to people living with HIV by harnessing the power of digital technology.

The ceremony at the ongoing Financial Times Future of Health Conference at the KIT Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, Netherlands was to accelerate the achievement of the goal of universal health coverage and the SDGs by building resilient, sustainable and inclusive systems for health leveraging on digital technology.

The conference organised by the Financial Times in partnership with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Joep Lange Institute brought together governments of several countries, multilateral organisations and global healthcare pioneers to explore how collaboration, mobile technology and innovation can accelerate inclusive and sustainable financing for Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

The Executive Director of Global Fund, Peter Sands said the partnership would pave the way for many Africans to access affordable and inclusive universal health coverage.

System strengthening interventions include investments in supply chain, data and service delivery integration.

On his part, the Chief Executive Officer, Stichting PharmAccess Group, Monique Dolfing-Volgelenzang stated that the importance of the partnership was aimed at building country capacities in Africa on the implementation of health financing models with the use of mobile technology, pooling various types of funding, in order to fight HIV, TB and malaria as well as reach Universal Health Coverage.

The Country Director of PharmAccess Foundation, Njide Ndili expressed excitement at the partnership noting that the move would indeed be beneficial to all the countries being supported in Africa, especially in Nigeria where there are huge inequalities in the accessibility of qualitative and quantitative healthcare services.

The Commissioner for Health, Lagos State, Dr. Jide Idris, said Global Fund and PharmAccess remains a trusted technical partners for implementing the grant to optimise the state health insurance scheme using digital technology.