Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with support from Qatar will launch Polio Legacy Challenge early 2025, disclosed a top official of the organisation.
“With our work on polio eradication, we are actually launching something called the Polio Legacy Challenge with the Islamic Development Bank. Gates Foundation and the governments of Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia will provide some funding through the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund to support the primary healthcare system in Afghanistan,” Dr Chris Elias, president of the Global Development Division at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation told Gulf Times in a recent interview.
Dr Elias said that his foundation is continuing to work for polio eradication. “This is a new initiative that is just beginning now. We are basically, working with the countries that have indicated their interest in doing it and in the process of finalising the agreements with the Islamic Development Bank. We hope to launch it in early 2025,” he explained.
“We will have a governing body in which all of the contributors will participate. The funds will be administered through the Islamic Development Bank for support of the primary health care system in Afghanistan,” continued the official.
Dr Elias noted that currently he chairs the board of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and has been working with Qatar on some of the regional initiatives to help finalise the job of polio eradication.
The official elaborated: “We have seen the wild polio virus in the two endemic countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Under the auspices of the World Health Organisation, the regional subcommittee on polio eradication is co-chaired by Qatar and UAE. The ministers of health of the Middle East region have actually been very helpful in encouraging both Pakistan and Afghanistan to do what is necessary for the final elimination of polio virus. So again, Qatar has been very helpful in this regard.”
Dr Elias said that the Gates Foundation has worked with Qatar’s Ministry of Public Health on the regional coordination on polio eradication leading to convening in Doha a number of important discussions about the polio eradication programme.
Dr Elias also highlighted some of the projects the Gates Foundation has been working in tandem with various organisations in Qatar such as Qatar Fund for Development, Qatar Foundation among others. “My colleague who runs our emergency response programme was here recently for the WISH Summit 2024 and the Gates Foundation has been providing emergency relief to some of the important crises in the region, including the crisis in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as in Sudan,” he highlighted.
“We have a very strong and growing relationship with Qatar over the last decade or so. You know, our biggest project has been our collaboration with the Lives and Livelihoods Fund at the Islamic Development Bank. Qatar was actually the first country to commit to that fund. Now it is a $2.5bn fund with support from Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Development Bank, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and few other donors,” he remarked.
The official said that the second phase of the programme is being lunched and the foundation is expecting commitments from all of the funders from the first phase in the next phase too.
“And we've worked with the Islamic Development Bank to make the programme faster in terms of making investments, and as well as more concessional in terms of the financing for developing country projects,” added, Dr Elias.
Dr Chris Elias
