COVID-19 has presented a global health emergency and exposed weaknesses in health systems in the developing world. The crisis has highlighted the need for investments focused on pandemic preparedness, including improvements in infrastructure, capacity-building for health workers, and strengthening the global health sector.
DFC is supporting efforts to improve vaccine equity and supply by increasing manufacturing capacity in multiple regions and with multiple technologies and products. DFC not only invests in vaccine manufacturing, but also other health commodity manufacturing including for diagnostics, therapeutics, and ancillary supplies. This robust approach is tailored to advance long-term sustainable solutions that address current and future health threats.
Further, through DFC’s Global Health and Prosperity Initiative the agency has supported nearly $2 billion in investment over 25 health projects that are bolstering the COVID-19 response and helping build greater health resilience. DFC's investments are also helping advance DFI collaboration on infrastructure development to bolster private sector investment in shared priority sectors including climate, health, gender equality, and digital connectivity.
DFC financing is helping Indian vaccine manufacturer, Biological E Limited, expand production capacity for at least one billion additional COVID vaccine doses.
Photo Credit: Africa Healthcare Network
A DFC loan is supporting the expansion of Africa Healthcare Network, the first dialysis chain in Sub-Saharan Africa focused on expanding access to affordable and quality care. Africa Healthcare Network will use the loan to improve dialysis care in existing hospitals in Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda, while establishing clinics to screen for kidney disease as well as registries for patients who are at risk.
DFC has committed a $50 million loan portfolio guaranty to help Vitas Jordan, a Jordanian microfinance institution, expand its lending to “missing middle” small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), businesses in need of financing too large for microfinance loans yet often considered too small or risky for commercial lenders.
DFC is providing a $3.3 million technical assistant grant to Fondation Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD) to support development of a vaccine production hub that will serve Senegal and the other countries of West Africa. The project, which will also receive support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the French development agency, AFD, and the European Investment Bank (EIB), will help address one of the greatest challenges of the pandemic by expanding vaccine manufacturing capacity on the continent that has the lowest vaccination rate in the world.
DFC is providing financing to the SEAF COVID-19 Global Gender Lens Emergency Loan Finance LLC, which is managed by the global private equity impact firm SEAF (Small Enterprise Assistance Funds). The facility is supporting Financial Access Commerce and Trade Services (FACTS), a company that specializes in providing short-term working capital to small and medium-sized businesses, agribusinesses, and emerging entrepreneurs in Kenya and Uganda.
Financing through a Citi framework agreement is helping New York-based Gradian Health Systems, Inc. design, distribute and maintain medical equipment made for low-resource environments in Benin, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. Gradian makes mechanical ventilators and anesthesia machines that are specifically designed for safe and effective use in challenging settings that have limited access to electricity and medical oxygen. The equipment is built with long-duration battery power, and designed to be easy-to-operate and to function in high-heat, humidity, or dust environments. Gradian also provides training on operating the equipment.
DFC financing is helping Varthana support the thousands of small affordable private schools that fill the gap that government schools cannot meet, providing critical loans and online learning plans to help these affordable private schools weather the pandemic and stay in business.
Financing is helping Dimagi Inc., a small technology business based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, support healthcare workers in South Africa with its open source mobile data management platform that facilitates data intake, patient monitoring, and COVID-19 contact tracing. The company’s technology allows healthcare workers to input data on individual patients, track their symptoms and healthcare visits and flag any areas of concern.
Political risk insurance supports the work of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a relief agency that responds to humanitarian crises around the world. By protecting against losses resulting from forced abandonment or expropriation, this insurance enables IRC to support displaced people, provide emergency health and sanitation services, stem gender-based violence, and respond to disease outbreaks. IRC is working to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in regions with limited access to healthcare, by introducing telemedicine to provide healthcare remotely, delivering medicine to communities in quarantine, and educating people about disease prevention. DFC’s insurance supports this work in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East including Georgia, Iraq, Niger, and Zimbabwe.
Photo Credit: Catholic Relief Services
Financing to Azure Source Capital, a special lending vehicle, is supporting loans to small cities and rural communities for investment in new and rehabilitated water pumps, pipelines, and storage tanks. Azure aims to improve water supply for 300,000 people, and is combining financial support with training so local residents can operate their own water systems.
Financing to Medical Credit Fund is providing loans to clinics in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, so that they can provide a higher level of care to a greater number of patients.
A DFC loan guaranty facility is helping Root Capital sustain livelihoods of more than one million farmers—more than half of them women—in 21 countries in Africa and Latin America.
Equity financing is helping the women-owned and women-led e-commerce business Kasha, expand its business selling personal care products to women in Kenya and Rwanda. Kasha offers an online store accessible through basic mobile phones, where consumers can browse, order, make payment and arrange for delivery. The company also works with a network of agents, most of them community health workers, who reach out to women in more remote areas to assist them with their purchases. To date, the company has served 70,000 customers, most of them low-income women.
A $15 million equity investment will help Freshtohome Foods Ltd. expand its Bangalore-based e-commerce business that sells fresh fish, meat and vegetables in major metropolitan cities in India. Freshtohome is a five-year-old company built with proprietary technology to connect more than 1,500 fishermen and farmers to its network that delivers affordable fish and meat products to consumers, while also helping food producers earn higher prices than they typically receive at auction.
Partnering with USAID, DFC structured a 50 percent loan portfolio credit guarantee with Botswana’s Absa Bank Botswana, which enabled Absa to lend to Arona Natural Foods, a small local bread producer with fewer than 10 employees.