World Bank agreed Grant of 100mn USD to Afghanistan for Expansion of Health Services

The World Bank on 7 May 2013 announced that it will provide grant of 100 million US dollar to Afghanistan for expansion of the basic health and essential hospital services in the country. The World Bank and Afghan Government released a press statement on the agreement reached and signed between the two to this effect at Kabul.

World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) will provide the grant with an aim to help the Afghan Public Health Ministry for its System Enhancement Health Action in Transition (SEHAT) program.

Afghanistan will use the grant for expansion of the scope and quality of the basic health and essential hospital services across the nation, which includes 22 rural and urban areas of its 34 provinces. It will also strengthen the National Health System by developing the capacity of the Public Health Ministry.

Afghanistan has made a steady progress in the health sector in the past decade. The facilities of health in 11 targeted provinces of Afghanistan has also tripled in a decade’s time from 148 to 432 as per official records, with about 20000 trained community health workers. The number of facilities with trained female health workers rose from 25 percent before the project to 74 percent today. The functional health care facilities in Afghanistan has gone up to 2000 from 496 and thus resulted in significant improvement in the coverage of reproductive and child health services, there has been a marked drop in maternal and child mortality.