The Diplomat
The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) has launched the Salud COVID program, a new instrument endowed with four million euros to help Spanish Cooperation partner countries to strengthen their health systems in the face of the pandemic and its health consequences.
The program was presented last Thursday on the occasion of World Health Day and joins AECID’s initiatives to promote universal health coverage and strengthen public health systems.
Salud COVID will begin its activity in 2022 with initiatives in Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico and Paraguay. These will address short- and medium-term needs – such as support for vaccination campaigns – and promote the strengthening of health systems in AECID partner countries and access to essential services that have been weakened.
The four million budgeted for 2022 will be allocated to nine initiatives that have been identified by AECID’s Overseas Cooperation Units – which has 31 Technical Cooperation Offices and four Knowledge Centers distributed in Latin America, Africa and the Philippines – and will be carried out by the governments of the beneficiary countries or by international agencies or specialized development organizations.
“The Salud COVID Program responds to the Spanish Cooperation’s Joint Response Strategy to the COVID-19 crisis, drafted in 2020, which includes as one of its three priorities to strengthen public health systems to ensure the universal coverage and access needed to address the COVID-19 health crisis, and to maintain and strengthen access to other essential health services to achieve universal health coverage,” said the AECID in a press release.
Spanish Cooperation, through AECID, “historically works to strengthen the national public health systems of its partner countries, at the request of ministries and health institutions, supporting them in the implementation of their public policies, plans and national strategies,” it continued. “It also puts the added value of our Public Health System at their service,” it added.
