South Africa COVID-19 Emergency Response Project

closed

The project development objective is to increase COVID-19 vaccination coverage among the population of South Africa. Component 1. Emergency COVID-19 Response (US$480.0 million from IBRD) aims to support the Government of South Africa (GoSA) to procure 47 million COVID-19 vaccines to cover the target population and thus reduce the spread of COVID-19 and deaths. Specifically, the proposed project will finance vaccine procurement, while the GoSA, with support from other partners, will finance deployment of the vaccines including risk communication and community engagement (RCCE). Since the GoSA has already signed contracts with COVAX, Janssen and Pfizer between December 2020 and June 2021 to procure vaccines and some are already deployed, retroactive financing will be made available under the proposed project covering up to 100 percent of the IBRD loan allocation for expenditure incurred before the signing of the financing agreement. Raising the retroactive financing ceiling up to 100 percent will give the GoSA flexibility to pay for the procurement of eligible vaccines before the project becomes effective and will allow the government to continue financing priority COVID-19 response activities and the deployment of the COVID-19 vaccines procured by the project. The GoSA, with support from other partners, has already established institutional and implementation arrangements for the safe and effective deployment of vaccines. The GoSA has also made efforts to strengthen the immunization and service delivery capacity to successfully deliver COVID-19 vaccines at scale. To this end, the GoSA has worked to overcome bottlenecks building on existing vaccine logistics capacity and prioritizing RCCE to address vaccine hesitancy. The GoSA will continuously review and adjust the vaccine rollout strategy and program to improve its effectiveness, efficiency, and equity.The GoSA will finance activities that will strengthen public structures for the coordination and management of the proposed project as part of the national COVID-19 vaccination program, including national and provincial arrangements for coordination of activities, financial management, procurement, and environmental and social (E&S) risk management. The GoSA will also finance activities that will improve the country E&S systems and practices agreed with the World Bank. Existing coordination structures operating within the National Department of Health (NDoH) for the national vaccination program will be responsible for coordination of project activities, as well as fiduciary tasks of procurement and financial management. The NDoH will also support monitoring and evaluation of overall vaccination and related surveillance program, as well as project reporting as part of the national program.