Improving Primary Healthcare
ADB to give $50 million loan
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide $50 million to finance a project which aims to help improve primary healthcare services for the urban poor.
Iqbal Mahmood, senior secretary to the Economic Relations Division (ERD) and M Teresa Kho, country director of ADB’s Bangladesh Resident Mission, signed the loan agreement yesterday, a press release said.
The assistance will help build 12 reproductive health care centres and 26 primary health care centres near slum areas, which will provide 30 percent of all services, free of cost, including drugs.
The project will include weekly mobile outreach services for the homeless and the extremely poor. It will also help local governments strengthen their policies on urban health issues and develop guidelines for managing public-private partnership healthcare contracts.
“With this project, we hope to strengthen maternal and child health, nutrition, and family planning — all factors that are critical to reducing urban poverty,” said Kho.
-With The Daily Star input
