Maputo — The World Bank has announced a loan of 44.6 million US dollars to support the implementation of the Mozambican government's Health Service Delivery Project (HSDP) for the period 2009-2014.

According to a World Bank press release received by AIM, the loan was approved by the Bank's Board of Executive Directors in Washington on Thursday. The money comes from the World Bank's soft loans affiliate, the International Development Association (IDA).

The total cost for the five year project is 72.4 million dollars. Other donors that have pledged to support it are Canada, Switzerland and Russia.

The largest component of the project is the improvement of health delivery in the three northern provinces of Nampula, Niassa and Cabo Delgado, costed at 42.6 million dollars. The other components are boosting the malaria control programme (13.5 million dollars), preparing a national health sector investment plan (500,000 dollars), and capacity building and operational costs (15.8 million dollars).

The World Bank release says that this will cover the construction of between 20 and 25 health centres in the northern provinces, plus houses for the staff who will work there. Some of the money will be used to drill boreholes to provide water for the health centres, and to install solar panels for electricity.

"We are pleased to see that a great portion of the funding will go to service delivery, thus directly contributing to improve the health of millions of Mozambicans in the years to come", said the World Bank's Mozambique country director, Michael Baxter.

"The Mozambique health system has shown significant improvements over the last decade as a result of economic growth and investments in the sector", said Jean J. De St Antoine, World Bank Task Team Leader for the project. "But Mozambique still faces major challenges especially to reduce child and under-five mortality rates that are above the average for Sub-Saharan Africa".