USAID: COVID-19 Global Response - Fact Sheet #3 FY20

Key Developments

The U.S. Department of State (DoS) and The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) remain committed to assisting the world’s most vulnerable countries in fighting the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. On June 4, U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo announced an additional $194 million to support the global response to COVID-19, bringing total pledged U.S. Government (USG) funding to more than $1 billion. To date, pledged funding from USAID includes more than $227 million in assistance from USAID’s Global Health Emergency Reserve Fund for Contagious Infectious-Disease Outbreaks (ERF-USAID), approximately $200 million in Global Health Programs (GHP-USAID) funds, nearly $463 million in humanitarian assistance from USAID’s International Disaster Assistance (IDA) account, and more than $208 million from the Economic Support Fund (ESF).

USAID, in coordination with the National Security Council, is working with interagency partners, including the U.S. Department of Defense, and the private sector to fulfill President Donald J. Trump’s commitment to provide ventilators manufactured in the U.S. to countries in need in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

USAID partners operating throughout the world are also conducting COVID-19 preparedness and response activities, including bolstering awareness-raising campaigns and distributing water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) supplies, particularly in overcrowded internally displaced person (IDP) and refugee camps, where the risk of disease transmission is high.

USAID also remains committed to fostering positive, effective global response coordination. USAID held a technical discussion with G7 countries and hosted two donor roundtables with bilateral donor countries to discuss COVID-19 response priorities, needs, and opportunities to improve coordination. USAID representatives and other donors also recently participated in a briefing on the COVID-19 response with UN Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock. During the briefing, donors discussed funding and operational challenges.

GLOBAL

UN Secretary-General António Guterres and response actors worldwide have reported an increase in gender-based violence (GBV) and sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) during the ongoing COVID-19 response, particularly in crisis settings and complex operating environments, where the risks of SEA are heightened due to increased power dynamics and limited access to information. As such, USAID is encouraging partner organizations to adopt a comprehensive approach to the prevention of SEA in activities and programs supporting the COVID-19 response. This includes integrated efforts in programming, compliance, and human resources processes, such as training staff on their SEA prevention responsibilities. At the program level, tools such as protection mainstreaming, gender analysis, risk mapping, mitigation measures, and safety audits can help prevent instances of GBV and SEA during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AFRICA

USAID remains committed to building upon decades of global health assistance in Africa to respond to and prevent the spread of COVID-19. Across Africa, USAID-supported partners continue to implement community engagement, health systems and laboratory capacity strengthening, infection prevention and control (IPC)—including cleaning and disinfection protocol, educating staff on personal protective equipment (PPE) use, establishing isolation areas, and implementing triage mechanisms and administrative protocols—risk communication, disease surveillance, delivery of essential commodities, and WASH activities.

With USAID support, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is providing global health security and WASH programming to support COVID-19 preparedness and response efforts in South Sudan through October. The funding will enable UNICEF to provide IPC and risk communication programming to more than 51,700 individuals living in areas vulnerable to COVID-19 transmission from May to early November, including more than 29,700 IDPs residing in the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan protection of civilians site in the capital city of Juba.

Furthermore, on May 29, the first set of oxygen concentrators, procured by the USAID District Coverage of Health Services (USAID DISCOVER-Health) project, arrived in Zambia. The concentrators can be highly effective in relieving pain, difficulty breathing, and shortness of breath, which are all common symptoms of COVID-19. USAID plans to deliver a total of 1,300 oxygen concentrators to select Government of Zambia Ministry of Health (MoH) clinics and facilities across the country to support the treatment of patients with severe cases of COVID-19. The USAID DISCOVER-Health project is also supporting a team of infection specialists from the MoH and the University Teaching Hospital to provide technical support in the country’s Central, Copperbelt, Luapula, Muchinga, Northern, and Northwestern provinces. In addition, USAID procured 3,500 bottles of hand sanitizer and 140 drums—approximately 55 pounds each—of disinfectant for distribution to all designated COVID-19 isolation and treatment centers in the country.

ASIA

USAID partners continue to provide essential global health and WASH services in multiple countries across Asia to help curb the spread of COVID-19. Prevention and response activities in the region include community engagement and risk communication, contact tracing, IPC, laboratory strengthening, and private sector partnerships to scale response efforts, as well as WASH interventions to improve access to crucial hygiene supplies. For example, the USAID Access to Health Fund is working to expand coverage of COVID-19 prevention, testing, contact tracing, isolation and treatment for people in Burma’s conflict-affected border states, reaching vulnerable communities in Rakhine, Mon, Shan, Kachin and Kayin states, as well as areas of Sagaing and Yangon regions. Separately, to increase access to public handwashing facilities in Indonesia, USAID supported the installation of more than 1,000 handwashing stations, nearly 700 water taps, and more than 900 soap dispensers in 35 municipalities.

USAID partner UNICEF is providing financial support for local procurement of essential hygiene supplies—including antibacterial liquid hand soaps, hand sanitizers, and disinfectants—in Mongolia through the Mongolian Red Cross Society to reach at least 30 health care facilities across the country.

In Nepal, where a strict 10-week lockdown has dramatically increased food insecurity and prevented people from seeking medical care, USAID partners provided phone counseling related to COVID-19 to 685,000 households, including 230,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women. Additionally, USAID's radio program "Mother Knows Best" is providing information on COVID-19 prevention to more than 2 million people throughout the country. Furthermore, USAID technical assistance helped expand the network of laboratories offering COVID-19 testing from one in March to 20 in May, making faster testing more readily available. Technical assistance included building capacity on diagnostics, technical protocols, PPE use, and IPC.

USAID is also working to boost the Philippine government’s capacity to track COVID-19 cases in the country. The Philippine Department of Health (DoH), with technical support from USAID, developed the COVID KAYA application to deliver fast, accurate, and real-time data reports on COVID-19. The application helps collect data and address information gaps related to the country’s COVID-19 health situation and supports local government units and health providers to improve reporting and contact tracing and address GBV during COVID-19.

In Cambodia, USAID partner UNICEF procured more than 87,000 soap bars and other hygiene supplies which the Provincial Department of Social Affairs distributed to nearly 10,000 children in all 351 residential care facilities and approximately 1,500 children undergoing reintegration along with their families.

EUROPE & EURASIA

With funding to countries in Europe and Eurasia, USAID is helping prepare laboratory systems for COVID-19 testing, activate case-finding and disease surveillance systems, provide technical support for COVID-19 response and preparedness, and bolster risk communication, among other interventions.

LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN

USAID is committed to providing global health and WASH support that will enable the most at-risk and vulnerable countries to prevent and respond to the spread of COVID-19 across the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region.

With $2.5 million in USAID IDA support, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is providing health assistance supporting COVID-19 prevention in Haiti through November. The funding will enable IOM to assist vulnerable people living in areas affected by acute food insecurity and inadequate access to WASH services and supplies. The UN agency plans to distribute hygiene kits and conduct risk communication and community engagement regarding COVID-19. In addition, IOM is supporting coordination efforts of the Government of Haiti Directorate for Civil Protection, the first responder to natural disasters, for the national COVID-19 response.

On May 26, USAID donated 250 ventilators to assist El Salvador with its national COVID-19 response. The ventilators, produced in the U.S., are highly specialized, state-of the art pieces of medical equipment that are used in hospitals and other medical facilities to help support patients who are having trouble breathing. USAID will also support one year of training on correct ventilator use and maintenance.

Peru is facing serious challenges in providing access to supplementary oxygen, with widespread reports of long lines and high prices for family members of patients needing oxygen in regions throughout the country. In response, USAID, in collaboration with Partners In Health, has installed 24 oxygen outlets at a major hospital in Peru’s capital city of Lima, and improved capacity of an oxygen plant at the Lambayeque Regional Hospital and is working to scale-up these efforts.

MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA

USAID funding in the Middle East and North Africa is supporting IPC, as well as the provision of global health and WASH services to populations affected by the COVID-19 outbreak throughout the region.

For example, USAID is supporting COVID-19 prevention and response activities in Morocco by procuring more than 250 handheld devices for central, regional, and provincial health centers to accurately monitor and effectively manage COVID-19 patient data in real time. USAID, through UNICEF Morocco, also developed and released informational videos, which aired on prime-time national television, about the importance of continued child vaccination during the outbreak and procured and distributed hygiene kits for children in 123 child protection centers in 44 cities.

With humanitarian assistance, USAID is supporting the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) to increase health care capacity in Lebanon’s most vulnerable communities and retrofit a hospital wing in Beirut to create a COVID-19 isolation center. With USAID support, AUBMC is partnering with academic medical centers throughout Lebanon, prioritizing areas with vulnerable populations, to train hospital staff on COVID-19 care and restock medical supplies. AUBMC will also provide IPC support at health facilities and conduct awareness campaigns about COVID-19 protection measures.

COVID-19 GLOBAL RESPONSE STRATEGY

In responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, USAID, together with DoS, launched the Strategy for Supplemental Funding to Prevent, Prepare for, and Respond to Coronavirus Abroad. Through four interrelated pillars, DoS and USAID are working to:

• Protect American citizens and the USG community overseas, facilitate the continuation of USG work overseas, and communicate effectively;
• Prevent, prepare for, respond to, and bolster health institutions to address the COVID-19 pandemic and the possible re-emergence of the disease;
• Prevent, prepare for, and respond to COVID-19 in existing complex emergency settings and address the potential humanitarian consequences of the pandemic; and
• Prepare for, mitigate, and address second-order economic, security, stabilization, and governance impacts of COVID-19.

To achieve these interrelated objectives, USAID is tailoring assistance based on country capacity and reported needs through implementation of the USG Action Plan to Support the International Response to COVID-19 (SAFER Action Plan). The SAFER Action Plan is focused on scaling up community approaches to slow the spread of COVID-19; addressing critical needs of health care facilities, health care workers, and patients; identifying, investigating, and responding to COVID-19 cases through expanded disease detection and surveillance mechanisms; employing strategies to address second-order impacts of COVID-19; and developing plans for the utilization of therapeutics, vaccines, and other life-saving supplies.

USAID coordinates with DoS, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other interagency partners to prioritize countries to receive funding for the COVID-19 response and works closely with various stakeholders, including DoS and USAID country staff, to select the most appropriate mechanisms to fill identified response gaps. USAID is also collaborating with governments, multilateral organizations, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and other actors working on the ground to support the COVID-19 response.