Two complementary loans totaling $500 million were authorized by the World Bank Board of Executive DirectorsWorld Bank Board of Executive Directors today to help and develop the health sector in India.
The World Bank is looking to support the Pradhan Mantri-Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission PM-ABHIM, which was founded by the government in October 2021 to develop the public healthcare infrastructure across the country.
One of the loans is intended to provide priority to the states of Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Meghalaya, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh for the improvement of their current medical infrastructure.
The COVID 19 outbreak in India has re-emphasized the need for significant reforms to improve health sector performance in India, as stated by the World Bank's acting country director for India, Hideki Mori. India's decision to invest early in order to strengthen its health system even as it emerges from the pandemic is a pioneering choice and we are pleased to support this important agenda, he went on to add.
The statement that was released by the World Bank says that the two loans, Public Health Systems for Pandemic Preparedness Program PHSPP and Enhanced Health Service Delivery Program EHSDP, are intended to complement each other and have a transformative effect. The institution believes that they would support the Indian government's reform initiatives to speed up coverage, boost standards, and increase the system's preparation and resilience.
Lynne Sherburne-Benz, the South Asia Regional Director for Human Development at the World Bank, said the two programs leverage the unique strengths of both the center and the states to support the development of more accessible, high-quality, and affordable health services. She said that strengthening health systems, combined with attention to strong disease response, will improve preparedness and response to future disease outbreaks.
The Public Health Systems for Pandemic Preparedness Program PHSPP is meant to facilitate Indian government's efforts to detect pathogens, strengthen the institutional capacity of the country's core public health institutions to respond to the programme and to improve its ability to detect pathogens.
The funding mechanism used by the PHSPP and the EHSDP puts an emphasis on outputs rather than inputs, which is a feature of both the PHSPP and the EHSDP. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's IBRD PHSPP and EHSDP loans have a combined final term of 18.5 years, including a 5 year grace period.