And we all know that support for the private sector is key in this period. Privately held companies dominate manufacturing of healthcare products globally and, on average, represent more than 50% of health care services in developing countries. So, the private sector is therefore at the heart of the solution to address the existing supply challenges and is working urgently to expand the manufacturing and delivery capacity which requires access to financing where we come in, but, in addition to other support including the risking, procurement and various supply chain solutions.

So, what has been our focus in the pandemic? In response to the critical health and financing needs, we moved very fast, similar to Muhammad explained on the bank side, first to really keep the system stabilized with that relief and liquidity support. We developed new financing packages and programs to support the existing and new clients during this difficult period and assured continued delivery of health services, materials and building new private sector capabilities.

Specifically, back in March, we rolled out the 8 billion fast track financing facility to address the immediate liquidity needs of our clients. To date, more than 4.5 billion have been deployed. Part of this facility includes a two-billion-dollar program for real sector companies, including clients specifically in healthcare. And we have already committed around 800 million dollars across all of IFC, across this facility, that’s not just healthcare, that’s all of the sectors, but, overall, our pandemic response funding, including mobilization to companies in the healthcare sector, up until today is about 500-600 million dollars in the past 10 months.

So, at the time when healthcare companies are struggling and the needs are growing, this is the sort of financing that makes the difference and saves lives and I would just give one example; a company in Ecuador, our client called Conclina, which runs the only internationally accredited hospital in in Ecuador, we gave them a loan to expand services for the influx of Covid patients, this is allowing more people to get the care they need and it frankly saves lives.

More recently we created a major funding facility, the Global Health Platform, some of you may have heard about it, which targets financing to unlock medical supply bottlenecks and build the resilience in health systems in emerging markets, particularly medical equipment and vaccines, which today, as we know and you mentioned at the very beginning, are mainly produced in the advanced economies.

As of the end of January, the Global Health Platform had about 900 million dollar worth of pipeline of projects under preparation across all regions and in areas such as pharma manufacturing and distribution and diagnostic services. Overall, the platform expects to provide about four billion dollars of funding, two billion of which is from IFC’s own account, and includes an innovative advisory component to increase the supply and local production of PPEs in developing countries. For example, help textile companies retool identify markets and meet technical specifications. We’ll also work with established PPE manufacturers that want to establish local manufacturing base in these various countries.

Manufacturers already started signing up for this program and I would be amiss if I didn’t say that when talking about our advisory work in support of dealing with the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on IFC’s clients, I didn’t express our gratitude to the governments of the UK and Norway and Japan for providing us important grant funding, it’s really important to have that kind of support.

A few words about vaccines specifically. As they are getting approved, we’re looking to fund more vaccine manufacturing and distribution. This is obviously something that all of us are focusing on right now and then we plan to be in the forefront of supporting this effort together with the World Bank. For example, a couple of months ago, we provided a 30-million-dollar loan to one of India’s top vaccine manufacturers, Biological E. Limited, which is known as Bio E, among other things, the money will help the company boost manufacturing capacity for a Covid-19 vaccine. Bio E is working on its own vaccine, but they also start producing Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine very soon, aiming for 600 million doses a year.

We’re also actively looking at other pharma companies and partners to see how we can extend this work. There’s obviously a lot more to do and I’m interested in hearing from all of you here how and where the more efforts are needed and how we can partner to fight this pandemic. There are a lot of initiatives under way and then we would like to be part of them, thank you.