The financial sector often views investing in the health sector with suspicion — it’s a risky bet that might not pay off. And in many places, private small- and medium-sized enterprises in the health sector don’t receive support from national governments, which are already struggling to fund public facilities.
To fill this gap, various actors — such as development agencies, financial institutions, and private firms — are working to increase the use of blended finance to support these SMEs. They say this strategy works to remove both real and perceived risks from these investments and gives financial institutions the time to build trust in and better understand the business models of health care SMEs.
“When we come into the market, we do not come to compete with financial institutions. We come to prove a point to the financial institutions that the health sector is actually bankable,” said Kennedy Okong'o, director of the Medical Credit Fund East Africa-PharmAccess Group.