Norway brings target within reach
Filed under News
December 3 – With a contribution of USD 300,000 (Norwegian krone 1,800,000) by one of the biggest donors, the Norwegian government, the Bhutan health trust fund (BHTF) inched closer to its target of creating a fund of USD 24 million.
“We’re expecting to achieve the target, but we don’t know that yet,” said the executive director of the trust fund Leki Dorji. “We’ll know if we’ve achieved the target after we get the contribution by the end of this month.”
This contribution by Norway is in addition to its earlier contribution of USD 988,371.88, thus contributing a total of USD 1.2888m to the fund.
Other biggest donors are the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and the Summit foundation that contributed USD one million each.
The 11-year-old BHTF was launched to ensure the sustainability of primary health care, through continued and uninterrupted supply of essential drugs and vaccines in the country. The fund started operations from the 2003-2004 financial year.
A total of Nu 4.55m from the fund has been used in funding the hepatitis B and anti rabies vaccines, the nationwide rubella campaign in 2006, and in co-financing the recently introduced pentavalent vaccine.
An addendum was signed yesterday between the councillor of the royal Norwegian embassy, New Delhi, Jan Hakon Olsson, and the secretary of the gross national happiness commission secretariat, Karma Tshiteem.
source: kuensel
