Strong primary health care saves lives and money and makes health systems more resilient and work better for all people. The current COVID-19 crisis exacerbated pre-existing weaknesses and inflicted devastating health and economic costs. However, it also created a once-in-a-generation chance for transformational health-system change.
June 29th, 2021 – 12:30PM ET
In the spring and summer of 2020, large parts of the world were hunkering down as governments locked 
down societies and economies. Millions of families were confined to their homes. Across the globe, people were losing their lives and livelihoods to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, we only had a hunch about how the pandemic would play out differently for different people. We asked ourselves: How is COVID-19 going to affect gender equality across the world?
PRESS RELEASE JUNE 21, 2021
Working with countries and partners across Africa to quickly expand equitable access to vaccines
WASHINGTON, June 21, 2021— The African Finance Ministers and the World Bank Group met today to fast track vaccine acquisition on the continent and avoid a third wave. In a boost to the African Union’s target to vaccinate 60% of the continent’s population by 2022, the World Bank and the AU announced that they are partnering to support the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) initiative with resources to allow countries to purchase and deploy vaccines for up to 400 million people across Africa. This extraordinary regional effort complements COVAX and comes at a time of rising COVID-19 cases in the region. World Bank financing is available to support the purchase and deployment of doses secured by AVATT.
To understand how the Climate Change Action Plan will drive climate action in countries, we
sat down with Bernice van Bronkhorst, the Bank’s Global Director for Climate Change; Genevieve Connors, Practice Manager, Climate Change Advisory and Operations; Vivek Pathak, Director and Global Head of Climate Business at IFC; and Merli Baroudi, Director of Economics and Sustainability at MIGA.
Growing hunger and food insecurity are making headlines around the world.
Hunger has been rising since 2014, due to conflict, economic shocks, and weather extremes. According to the FAO, 688 million people were hungry in 2019, compared to 624 million in 2014.
I would like to quickly summarize some of my recent activities, and preview a few events yet to
come.
My first trip since the start of the pandemic was both productive and informative in equal measure. Ahead of the in-person G7 Finance Meetings in London, I first stopped in Helsinki and Moscow for a series of good meetings.
For centuries, humans have indulged their vast curiosity by exploring and asking questions. We
focused our attention predominantly on the land as it is our home, and let our imaginations fly into the starlit sky.
As the world continues to face the public health, social, and economic unravelling due to the 
COVID-19 crisis, it should be clear that, The World Bank Group is helping developing countries purchase and distribute vaccines and strengthen health systems through a $12 billion vaccine financing facility, which complements the $6 billion Global COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Program in the health sector approved in April 2020 and that now covers more than 110 countries.
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