Norway gives World Bank $150 million for health care

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Norway on Tuesday announced $105 million in grant funding for the World Bank to explore innovative ways to improve health-care systems in developing countries, especially for women and babies.

The money is the first disbursement of $1 billion pledged by Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in September. Millions of mothers and their infants die each year from preventable causes.

The $105 million will support World Bank pilot programs in impoverished countries, focusing on effective ways of delivering health care to the poor.

"Norway is investing a significant amount of money in the World Bank to help poor countries strengthen their health systems so that mothers can survive their pregnancies and safely deliver babies who live beyond their first weeks of life," Stoltenberg said in a statement distributed by the World Bank.

"We look to the Bank to champion greater use of financial incentives to improve care for women and children. We know, for example, that mothers are more likely to have successful births for their babies if they take place in health facilities where help, advice and equipment is on-hand, rather than at home," he said.

The World Bank said governments can also fix underlying problems in their health systems by focusing on results.

"Much of the increased health funding available to countries is earmarked to fight priority diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and some vaccine-preventable diseases," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said.

"But it's vital that governments also have the flexibility to fix the underlying problems in the delivery system and that other priorities such as maternal and child health, nutrition, and family planning are not crowded out," he added.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; editing by Gary Hill)