Good health is not only fundamental to human wellbeing and happiness but is also critical to economic growth as healthier populations live longer and are more productive. Yet developing countries face persistent health challenges due to limited healthcare infrastructure and other obstacles, preventing them from reaching their full potential.
DFC is committed to creating a healthier world by investing in projects that improve pandemic preparedness and health system resilience, including investments in health services and infrastructure, health commodity manufacturing and supply chain, and digital health.
The agency launched a swift response to the COVID-19 pandemic and supports multiple projects that will expand vaccine manufacturing capacity. DFC healthcare investments also aim to increase access, affordability, and quality of care for both infectious and non-communicable diseases as well as improve water, sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition for holistic health and well-being.
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 helping advance DFI collaboration on infrastructure development to bolster private sector investment in shared priority sectors including climate, health, gender equality, and digital connectivity.
Ukraine’s non-profit Superhumans Center, backed by $25 million in political risk insurance (PRI) from DFC, is supporting the country’s life-saving work to care for those who were injured during Russia’s brutal invasion, including those who lost limbs, PTSD victims, and others. The hospital has operated — without state funding — at a facility near the city of Lviv in west Ukraine since April 2023, providing free-of-charge healthcare services to those requiring prosthesis, physical and psychological rehabilitation, and social reintegration, as well as reconstructive and craniofacial surgeries. Superhumans plans to expand to other regions of Ukraine in the near future.
A DFC equity investment of up to $10 million in AfricInvest’s Transform Health Fund will support investments in Africa’s healthcare services and health supply chain sectors, increasing healthcare access for low-income populations.
Former banker and leadership coach turned-entrepreneur Sahil Dharia founded India-based Soothe Healthcare in 2012 after considering the negative effects of girls missing school due to menstruation and the benefits of expanding access to hygiene products. DFC financing will help Soothe support the expanded manufacturing of affordable menstrual products and grow its distribution network to better reach under-served women in non-urban areas.
A DFC loan is helping GIP Medicina Diagnóstica S.A. expand its chain of women’s health diagnostic centers that provide diagnostic testing, imaging, blood work, and pathology testing services. The company, which is known as Femme in the local market, currently operates 14 centers in São Paulo and will use the DFC financing to expand, adding more than 27 centers over the next six years, serving low and middle-income women. With the additional diagnostic centers, the company projects its annual patient consultations will increase from approximately 300,000 currently to more than 4.5 million. Femme plans to place new locations in underserved areas to help increase access for low-income households.
DFC financing is helping Indian vaccine manufacturer, Biological E Limited, expand production capacity for at least one billion additional COVID vaccine doses.
DFC-guaranteed loans to Portea Medical, an India-based home healthcare company founded in 2013, will help provide targeted healthcare services at a fraction of the cost of traditional care. While hospital ICU care can cost approximately $400 per day, Portea’s comparable home-based services are available at only $133 per day.
A DFC equity investment in Dolma Impact Fund II will support investments in healthcare, renewable energy, and technology. Dolma Fund Management, the first private equity fund manager dedicated to investing in Nepal, will target investments that reduce dependence on imported energy, help mitigate the impacts of flood, landslide, and drought on its largely agrarian economy, while promoting the introduction of technology that promotes financial inclusion.
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 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.
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.
Financing supported construction of the Luanda Medical Center, a private medical clinic in the country’s capital. The clinic delivers affordable and quality health services to people of all ages and income levels. By hiring highly qualified professionals and investing in X-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI technologies, the medical center has dramatically increased diagnostic capabilities in Luanda. Today the medical center provides diagnostic services, screening, preventive care, maternal care and chronic disease treatment to thousands of patients every month.
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 $2 million loan is helping the Magrabi ICO Cameroon Eye Institute provide affordable surgery to thousands of patients. The financing to this project was structured as a Development Impact Bond (DIB), a pay-for-performance loan in which lenders earn higher returns when the hospital reaches more patients. During the project’s first year, the financing helped the hospital screen more than 50,000 patients and complete more than 2,300 cataract surgeries. Low income patients received the sight-saving surgery for free or at a subsidized rate, and the quality of surgeries exceeded World Health Organization standards with nearly 70 percent of surgeries achieving a good visual outcome on the day after surgery.
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 totaling $250 million together with $150 million in political risk insurance supported construction of a 202-mile pipeline running from an aquifer in southern Jordan to Amman. The pipeline has the capacity to transport 100 million cubic meters of potable water a year.
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.
DFC technical assistance helped American Hospital Tbilisi launch a program to provide outpatient and surgical care to hundreds of pediatric and adult Ukrainian refugees as well as Ukrainians traveling to Georgia for medical treatment.