Health

In the Southern countries, public health services are challenged to respond to the growing needs of the populations, despite budgets that are often insufficient in relation to the stakes.

The crisis related to the global Covid-19 pandemic has had serious economic and social consequences, which limit access to healthcare for a growing proportion of the population. In tandem with the public sector, a number of challenges need to be addressed to develop the private health sector and make it more resilient to crises: increase the training capacity for health professionals, strengthen and coordinate the regulation of the sector at regional level (in particular for pharmaceuticals), and improve general infrastructure to bring production into line with the highest standards.   

Despite the significant progress in recent years, infectious and communicable diseases continue to put the greatest burden on health systems in a number of countries in the South. In addition, longer life expectancy, the high prevalence of infectious diseases and the increasing pressure of chronic diseases (diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases) pose unprecedented challenges to health systems in developing and emerging countries.

Huge investments are required in order to respond to these developments – beyond public financing capacities in most Southern countries. Effective coopation with the private sector can organize and sustainably improve healthcare provision by creating appropriate solutions.

To this end, Proparco, Proparco supports the financing of quality hospitals and private clinics, with particular focus on staff training, the creation of new specialties (oncology, pediatric surgery) and the equipping of state-of-the-art technical platforms, and participates in strengthening diagnostic capacities by supporting the development of medical biology players.

The availability of effective and affordable drugs is also a major challenge for the treatment of priority diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, or chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes. In developing countries, their availability is hampered by high costs, deficiencies in supply and distribution systems, etc.

It is for this reason that Proparco supports the production and distribution of affordable local medicines through the financing of laboratories, pharmaceutical groups and pharmaceutical distribution chains.

These interventions are carried out through direct financing of private operators or via intermediaries (banks, investment funds, etc.) dedicated to financing health actors (SMEs in medical equipment and materials, pharmacies, etc.), by encouraging technology transfers.