Financing mechanisms
The Financing Alliance for Health’s innovative financing mechanisms are designed to address critical gaps in health funding by mobilizing resources from diverse sources, including governments, global health organizations, and private sector partners. These mechanisms ensure sustainable and equitable financing for primary and community health programs, ensuring they better serve vulnerable populations.
We have designed 2 key mechanisms:
The fragmentation of funding for community health in Africa causes inefficiencies and gaps in essential services, hindering progress towards universal health coverage. The Africa Frontline First Initiative (AFF) addresses this by creating continent-wide financing mechanisms to pool resources and reduce wastage.
FAH was the seed investor and remain the fiscal sponsor of the initiative.
The Partners
AFF Catalytic Fund is the first financing mechanism designed by AFF.
The fund has mobilized $120 million to support the deployment of 200,000 professionalized community health workers in 10 African countries by 2030 with investments from Global Fund, Skoll Foundation, and Johnson & Johnson Foundation.
Community Health Unit Savings and Loan Associations (CHUSLAs)
Community Health Workers (CHWs) face challenges like low pay, inadequate training, limited career growth, and financial instability, leading to high attrition rates.
This disrupts service delivery, exacerbates healthcare inequalities, and increases training costs for new CHWs.
The Community Health Unit Savings and Loan Associations (CHUSLAs) initiative aims to address these issues by establishing CHUSLAs to invest in income-generating activities managed by CHWs.
With 10 to 20 self-selected members, CHUSLAs save money through share purchases, invest in a loan fund, and provide small grants for emergencies.