High quality healthcare

The OPEC Fund has teamed up with other international institutions to help improve the quality of hospital services in Egypt and Morocco.

As published in the 02/2020 issue of the OPEC Fund Quarterly.

A financing facility worth a total US$125 million will be used to develop a greenfield general hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, and another in Zenata, Casablanca, in Morocco. Additionally, an existing 225-bed hospital in Cairo, Egypt will be expanded. Both countries, like some others in the region, lack sufficient high-quality healthcare to support fast-growing populations.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) led the structuring of the financing, which comprises US$25 million from the OPEC Fund and contributions from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation, the IFC itself and the IFC-Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program (MCPP). Finance will be provided under an Islamic finance structure known as a ‘Commodity Murabaha’.

This project is in line with our support for Sustainable Development Goal 3 on ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all,” said OPEC Fund Assistant Director-General Tareq Alnassar, who attended a signing ceremony for stakeholders in Dubai recently. “We have partnered with Egypt and Morocco for more than four decades and this project reaffirms our commitment to socio-economic development in the region as a whole.”

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the average number of beds per 1,000 people is 1.0 – significantly lower that the 2.7 world average. According to the IFC, investments as high as US$1.2 trillion will be required to close this gap and improve healthcare in the region. Given the fiscal constraints in many of the MENA countries, there is a need to channel private funding and expertise to complement traditional public funding into bankable healthcare projects. The OPEC Fund’s financing will help contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 3, which calls for increased investment in healthcare to provide universal coverage and reduce social and economic inequalities.

About Humania

Humania was incorporated by Bait Al Batterjee Medical Co (BAB) to facilitate the expansion of its successful medical practice (branded ‘Saudi- German Hospitals’) into North Africa. BAB is a leading provider of health services in the MENA region, operating more than 2,500 hospital beds and employing over 12,000 people in 10 operating hospitals across four countries.

The OPEC Fund has teamed up with other international institutions to help improve the quality of hospital services in Egypt and Morocco.