Solomon Islands Covid-19 Emergency Response Additional Financing

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The Additional Financing (AF) provide a grant in the amount of US$5 million equivalent IDA and a grant in the amount of US$3.0 million from the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Multi-Donor Trust Fund (HEPRTF). The AF would support the costs of expanding activities of the Solomon Islands COVID-19 Emergency Response Project (SIERP, P173933) under the COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Program (SPRP) using the Multiphase Programmatic Approach (MPA), approved by the Board on April 2, 2020, and the vaccines AF to the SPRP approved on October 13, 2021. The primary objectives of the AF are to enable equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines and help ensure effective vaccine deployment in the Solomon Islands through vaccination system strengthening, and to further strengthen preparedness and response activities under the parent project. The proposed AF does not include financing the acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines. The SIERP parent project in an amount of US$5 million IDA – was approved on January 4, 2021 prepared under the SPRP.A US$5 million IDA grant will support a scale-up of ongoing activities across all three components of the parent project while a new subcomponent 2.2 is added to include new activities on strengthening human resource systems and policy. The scale-up of all parent project component 1 activities supporting the general health response to COVID-19 are captured in new subcomponent 1.1 and are fully financed by the IDA grant. The scale-up of all parent project component 2 activities supporting health systems strengthening and health infrastructure development are captured in new subcomponent 2.1 and are fully financed by the IDA grant. New activities on strengthening human resource systems and policy are added under new subcomponent 2.2. The IDA grant will also provide further support towards project management and M&E under component 3. An HEPR Program grant in the amount of US$3.0 million will strengthen the COVID-19 related health emergency response by supporting COVID-19 vaccination deployment nationwide under new subcomponent 1.2. The AF HEPR Program grant will fund HR capacity and operational costs associated with the COVID-19 vaccine deployment, demand generation and communication including printing of vaccine certificates, and the purchase of boats and cars to provide transportation for the vaccine rollout, on condition that these TF resources are not used to purchase COVID-19 vaccines. In Solomon Islands the supply of vaccine is adequate given donations received from bilateral partners which supplement those vaccines received under the COVAX facility.The components, sub-components and their activities have been designed to support critical gaps identified through the Consolidated National Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID-19, the National Deployment and Vaccine Plan (NDVP) as well as the Vaccine Readiness Assessment Framework (VRAF). The coverage remains national, includes targeted support to provinces, and complements activities already committed by other DPs. At the time of preparation of SIERP, COVID-19 vaccines were still under development, and while Solomon Islands currently has an ample supply of COVID-19 vaccines (both in hand and projected to be delivered) there are substantial gaps in the SIG’s capacity to deploy vaccines nationwide.The Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) will remain the project’s implementing agency. Given the increased scope of the proposed activities under the AF, the established Project Management Unit (PMU) will be scaled up to ensure adequate implementation support which includes financing a public health specialist and a vaccine specialist to support the MHMS with planning and implementation of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. As part of support for the COVID-19 vaccine deployment, the PMU will work closely with the COVID-19 vaccine technical working group who have been established to manage the country’s vaccine roll-out. This technical working group consists largely of MHMS staff that are part of the National immunization program and complemented with support from other development partners.