Japanese Government provides New Emergency Grant to UNICEF to improve Cold Chain in Ethiopia

The Government of Japan provides a new Emergency Grant of US$ 1.45 million (over 60 million Ethiopian Birr) through its partnership with UNICEF to improve the vaccines cold chain in Ethiopia.

This funding aims to deliver vaccines nationwide in Ethiopia through the procurement of cold chain equipment (CCE) including medical equipment, such as cold-storage facilities and transportation, as “Last Mile Support”, which will complement efforts of the COVAX Facility.

In addition, it will strengthen the capacity of the Government of Ethiopia to address the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) through the procurement of CCE and strengthening institutional capacity to manage the CCE for the smooth roll out of the COVID-19 vaccines.

Through this contribution, it is expected that 138 health facilities will have new or functional CCE in place to meet the requirements for the COVID-19 vaccine as well as other vaccines, and 230 mid-level cold chain technicians and 420 health care facility staff will be trained on the operation and maintenance of new CCE as well as on the use and monitoring of the vaccines. As a result, an estimated 3 million people will benefit from this contribution.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the international community has been facing a common challenge of ensuring equitable global access and accelerating the rollout of vaccines towards the common goal of containing the coronavirus. Accordingly, the Government of Japan has directly supported, with a contribution of US$ 200 million, the establishment of the COVAX facility, an international mechanism for the procurement of vaccines, of which UNICEF is a major partner globally.