NEW YORK – Today, The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Swedish International Agency for Development Cooperation announced a five-year partial guarantee to help speed up the procurement of essential medicines and health supplies by governments and civil society partners.  The guarantee is part of a major scale-up of the Pledge Guarantee for Health, which will help to increase the impact of donor funding and ultimately improve healthcare access for the millions who are helped by foreign aid.

USAID’s partial guarantee, facilitated through its Development Credit Authority, enables PGH to access $100 million in credit that, over 5 years, can mobilize a tremendous value of lending capacity.

“This announcement builds on our efforts to partner with the private sector to help end preventable child death within a generation,” said USAID Administrator Raj Shah. “USAID’s partnership with the Pledge Guarantee for Health will help make this promise a reality by ensuring that people around the world — especially mothers and their children — have access to life-saving vaccines, bed nets, and other supplies that are delivered more quickly, cheaply, and broadly than ever before.”

With the support of leading multilateral donor organizations such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, this collaboration can help boost the impact of donor aid and improve the lives of mothers, children, and families globally.

Administrator Shah made the announcement at the 2013 GBCHealth Conference currently underway in New York. He was joined by Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, Kathy Calvin, President of the UN Foundation, as well as representatives from the UN, PGH, Sida, Merck, and Vestergaard Frandsen.

Private sector commodity suppliers Merck and Vestergaard Frandsen have also stepped up to provide up-front price discounts to aid recipients who utilize PGH to purchase their life-saving health supplies.