The Pandemic Fund

Dr Joy St John’s 30 year career in Public Health has allowed her to give service at the national, regional and global levels.

She rose through the ranks of Public Health in Barbados to become the first Barbadian to be Chief Medical Officer of her country, from 2005 to 2017.

She has served as the Director and most recently in June 2024, completed 5 years as the first female Executive Director of the Caribbean Public Health Agency.

The Pandemic Fund’s Governing Board has approved grants under its first round of funding allocations, aimed to boost the resilience to future pandemics in 37 countries across six regions. The selected 19 projects will receive funding to strengthen disease surveillance and early warning, laboratory systems, and health workforce.
 

Anita leads all external communications efforts (including web and social media), with an objective to position the Pandemic Fund, increase its visibility, and disseminate results. This includes content creation, media and social media engagement, branding, and reputational risk management.

Alejandra is an internationalist with almost two decades of experience in both international development and the private sector.

Selomé brings extensive experience in administration and office management from her previous roles at the Front Office of the Global Partnership for Education of the World Bank, the United Nations, and the African Union Commission.

Selomé is a native of Ethiopia, has excellent command of both English and French, and holds an associate degree from Addis Ababa University School of Commerce and Certificates from Uhuru Institute of Management Training in Cape Town and Richland College in Texas.

Priya Basu is a global health and development finance executive with nearly three decades of leadership at the intersection of pandemic preparedness, health systems, innovative finance, strategic partnerships and resource mobilization. She is the founding Executive Head of the Pandemic Fund at the World Bank, where she has led the Fund’s design and operationalization from the ground up --  establishing its governance, delivery architecture, and financing model, to enable rapid scale up.

Background

The Pandemic Fund was established as a dedicated, multilateral funding mechanism to support critical investments to strengthen Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response (PPR) capacities at national, regional, and global levels, with a focus on IDA and IBRD countries.  The Pandemic Fund was formally established as a Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF

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Following the February 2023 call for expressions of interest, which far exceeded expectations with requests for more than $7 billion of grant financing, the Pandemic Fund closed its first Call for Proposals on May 19, 2023, with final allocation decisions expected in late July 2023.