The Government of the Federal Republic of Germany announced additional funds of 128 million USD which will be supporting health and education programmes in the East African Community,
The majority of the funds will be going towards the East Africa Community’s immunization programme with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The East Africa Community Secretary General, Amb. Libérat Mfumukeko, and the Chargé d’Affaires of the Federal Republic of Germany, Jörg Herrera, jointly signed the Agreement in Arusha .
With the additional grant, the program will be financing the procurement of at least four different types of vaccines such as, Pentavalent, Rotavirus, Pneumococcal and Measles, for children in all six Partner States of the East African Community. The programme is financed through the German Development Bank, KfW, and implemented in collaboration with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
The cooperation aims at reducing child mortality in the region and mainly targets newborns. To date, German Development Cooperation with the East Africa Community has financed nearly 80 million doses of life-saving vaccines for the region since the support started in 2013 and the average immunization coverage in the region was substantially increased, making the East Africa Community ’s immunization program the strongest in Sub-Sahara Africa.
Other funds including 15.5 million USD will be going towards the East Africa Community Regional Centre of Excellence for Health Supply Chain Management, located at the University of Rwanda in Kigali, 2.2 million USD to the support of Ebola preparedness within the ongoing East Africa Community-German project which is Regional Network of Reference Laboratories for Communicable Diseases and 5.3 million USD to the Academic Centre for Digital Innovation in East Africa at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology located in Arusha.
Speaking at the event, Amb. Mfumukeko thanked Germany for its continued support to the East Africa Community and the integration process in general.
Amb. Mfumukeko said the immunization program in particular would go a long way in saving the lives of millions of children in the six East Africa Community Partner States.
“The implementation of 2018 (Phase VI) which had a commitment of 34.1 million USD has been fully concluded. The amount was fully disbursed to GAVI in December 2018 and spent on Pentavalent, Rotavirus and Pneumococcal vaccines in all East Africa Community Partner States. GAVI has provided full documentation on the use of the fund including the number of doses per vaccine and country,” said the Secretary General.
“The new commitment of 105 million USD for Phase VII , will be used for the procurement of four vaccines such as, Pentavalent, Rotavirus, Pneumococcal, Measles, with possible extension to Yellow Fever and HPV vaccines in all East Africa Community Partner States. Vaccine procurements may take place in 2019 and 2020,” added the SG.
In his remarks, the German Chargé d’Affaires, Jörg Herrera, underscored Germany’s commitment to extend the ongoing health and education programs with the East Africa Community Secretariat saying the programs would especially
benefit the young generation of East African citizens.”
“Investing in the health sector is not only an investment for sustainable social development but also for a country’s and the region’s economic development. Vaccinations are a highly effective and cost efficient means to fight child mortality. The German Government highly commends the East Africa Community’s efforts to immunize every child,” said Herrera.
East Africa Community and Germany can look back on over 20 years of successful development cooperation which focuses on Health as well as Regional Economic and Social Integration. Germany’s development cooperation, on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), has to date contributed to the regional integration in East Africa through a variety of programs and projects. Including the commitments announced today, the German contributions to East Africa Community-German Development Cooperation programs will have added up to over USD 480 million.
The Signing of the Government Agreement was witnessed by the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Inter-University Council for East Africa, Prof. Mike Kuria, the Director of Infrastructure at the East Africa Community Secretariat, Dr. Kamugisha Kazaura, Ms Norzin Grigoleit-Dagyab, the Head of Regional Cooperation from the German Embassy and Pascal Kanyinyi, KfW’s Senior Project Coordinator Health.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 15 DECEMBER 2019
BY MEHARI BEYENE
