The Transform Health Fund (THF), a blended-finance fund for growing proven and innovative healthcare solutions in Africa, has been established by FSD Africa Investments, AfricInvest, Malaria No More, and the Health Finance Coalition (HFC). THF has secured $50 million in commitments, exceeding its goal size for its first close.
The fund’s goal is to address Africa’s significant healthcare financing gap while also creating a resilient healthcare ecosystem that enhances access, affordability, resilience, and quality of care for low-income patients. It will concentrate on three crucial areas that will benefit low-income patients: supply chain reform, innovative care delivery, and digital innovation.
THF will invest in nations throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, with an emphasis on East, Southern, and Francophone West Africa. This contribution is intended to help solve the continent’s urgent demand for high-quality, low-cost healthcare.
THF’s investment plan specifically includes health care for women as one of its primary investment goals. Some of its investments are built with a strong gender lens, focusing on female-led enterprises and benefiting an expanding number of women.
“FSDAi is excited to announce its catalytic capital investment in the innovative THF fund,” said Anne Marie Chidzero, Chief Investment Officer at FSD Africa Investments. We are happy that our capital contribution to this tranche of the fund enabled additional commercial and corporate private sector investors to participate. Working with AfricInvest, HFC, and the other fund members to strengthen the African healthcare system is a top goal for FSDAi, especially in this time of environmental stress and unpredictable climate disasters.”
“The UK is excited with FSDAi to be a catalytic investor in the Transform Health Fund,” said Louise Walker, Head of Private Sector and Capital Markets Department, FCDO. This is a novel collaboration that brings together concessional and private finance, mobilizing more resources, which is crucial to make healthcare more accessible and cheap for low-income individuals across the continent. I’m really glad to see that investments will target women-led companies and that services will also focus on women, as we know that maternal and newborn mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa is far higher than SDG targets.”
AfricInvest, with its three decades of experience and insight, will play a critical role in leveraging a wide range of support across many regions of the continent, providing financing for companies in the health sector, assisting African local markets in scaling up their own healthcare systems, and creating regional champions.
“As health financing needs grow and healthcare demands rise, it is critical that we work together to close Africa’s massive health financing gap,” said Martin Edlund, CEO of Malaria No More and Executive Director of the Health Finance Coalition. “The Transform Health Fund is critical in accelerating capital to scale healthcare solutions.”
Royal Philips, Merck & Co., Inc., known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada, the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Swedfund, FSD Africa Investments, Netri Foundation, Anesvad Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada (with funding from Global Affairs Canada), Chemonics International, and the MCJ Amelior Foundation are among THF’s partners. Additional investors who share the goal of improving healthcare in Africa are anticipated to join the fund.
