THE HISTORY OF THE OPEC FUND
Health sector approvals by region
Fund provided US$46 million to the Common Fund directly. After years of negotiations the Common Fund, an autonomous intergovernmental financial institution within the framework of the United Nations, approved its first commodity development project in 1991. It is still operational and continues to fund commodity-oriented projects.
Total approvals: US$1.17 BN
Africa
Asia
Latin America & Caribbean
Europe
Global
Amounts under US$.09 MN may not be reflected in this chart
Health is closely connected with nutrition and personal well-being and from the very beginning the OPEC Fund made support for healthcare a focus of its operations. It signed its first grant in the sector with a contribution to the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh in 1979 which in later years would also attract support from the Gates Foundation. The first hospital co-financed by the OPEC Fund also was in Bangladesh. The
Shaheed Suhrawardy General Hospital Complex and Dhaka Dental College is a 50-bed complex in the country’s capital and largest city and was supported by the OPEC Fund with a US$10 million loan. The latest hospital infrastructure project is for the construction of a full- scale hospital in the Comoros, with a US$17 million loan signed in 2024.
To date, the OPEC Fund has invested US$1.2 billion in health, of which 77 percent were public sector loans, 10 percent were private sector loans and 13 percent were grants. The high share of grants is also explained by the fact that a significant proportion goes to the funding of research, a crucial area for improving health and medical care.
El Maarouf Hospital Project, Comoros Life expectancy in the Comoros, a volcanic archipelago in the Indian Ocean, has improved markedly since the turn of the century – rising from 62 years in 2000 to 68 in 2020. Yet, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), preterm birth complications remain one of the top five causes of death, in part due to a lack of specialist care. The 2024 El-Maarouf Hospital project in the capital Moroni aims to tackle the problem with plans to reduce the need for medical travel abroad by 90 percent while halving the number of emergency evacuations. The project involves the construction of a 300-bed hospital to serve the population of more than 800,000 people, including mothers and babies. Complying with the latest international standards, the hospital will offer state-of-the-art clinical, diagnostic and auxiliary services. It will also become a training center for public health and medicine, which is currently not available in the Comoros. The OPEC Fund has contributed a US$17 million loan as part of a co-financing partnership with the Islamic Development Bank, World Bank Group, Trade and Development Bank and the government of Comoros, for a total project cost of just under US$108 million. This investment will not only save lives, but also in the long run substantial amounts of money. Overall it is set to reduce government health expenditure by around 1 percent of GDP, according to national estimates.
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