H.E. Dr Bandar M. H. Hajjar, the President of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), and Elhadj As Sy, the Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), agreed on plans to create of a multi-million dollar fund to combat cholera and other diarrheal diseases in OIC countries.

The WASH Fund will finance a WASH program to impact the lives of 5 million people in 29 OIC member countries. The program aims to strengthen and integrate the delivery of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) with health services to combat cholera and other diarrheal diseases building upon well proven methodologies.

The WASH Fund uses an innovative financing mechanism designed to attract new philanthropic and private investor capital in addition to traditional humanitarian donor financing. This fund structure would then be increased in size through the issuance of a Sukuk enabling it to operate at multi-million-dollar scale.

IsDB and IFRC are now meeting with donors, philanthropists and outcome funders to raise capital, before issue the Sukuk on the international capital markets.

This Fund will contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 on health, SDG 5 on gender-equality, SDG 6 on water and sanitation, and SDG 17 on partnership. It will also contribute to the Ending Cholera Global Roadmap– a multi-stakeholder plan announced in late 2017 which aims to reduce cholera deaths by 90 per cent by 2030.