Khartoum / Information Office / September 17
The Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) and the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Sudan signed a memorandum of understanding to support the preparedness plan for health emergencies in Sudan.
Sudanese Health Minister-designate Dr. Osama Abdel-Rahim signed on behalf of the Sudanese Health Ministry, while HE Qatar's Ambassador to Sudan Abdulrahman bin Ali Al Kubaisi signed on behalf of the QFFD.
The QFFD also signed a grant agreement with the Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) to finance a project to strengthen emergency health system preparedness in the Republic of Sudan.
The agreement was signed for the QFFD by HE Qatar's Ambassador to Sudan Abdulrahman bin Ali Al Kubaisi and for QRCS by its Secretary-General Ali bin Hassan Al Hammadi.
The signing ceremony was attended by officials from the Sudanese Health Ministry, the World Health Organization office in Khartoum, and members of the Qatari embassy.
In his speech, the Sudanese Health Minister-designate thanked the State of Qatar for standing with Sudan in these circumstances, pointing out that the health system in Sudan has been in a state of emergency since the Coronavirus pandemic and the floods that swept the country recently.
The Minister said that the agreement focused on rehabilitating the infrastructure and training health cadres working in the field of health emergencies, hoping that this agreement would be a building block for future partnerships between Sudan and Qatar in various health fields, while highlighting the common past, present and future between the two peoples of Qatar and Sudan.
For his part, Al Kubaisi said in his speech that the two agreements come within the framework of the distinguished relations between Qatar and Sudan and the historical ties between the peoples of the two brotherly countries, as well as in response to the declaration of the humanitarian emergency by the Sudanese government. He underlined Qatar's provision of humanitarian grants and development assistance through the Qatar Fund for Development, while pointing to the continuing development support by the State of Qatar. The last of which was the relief aid that came under the noble directives from HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani to mitigate the effects of floods, torrents and rains in many regions of Sudan.
Al Kubaisi said that the two agreements would target several projects in the states of White Nile, Sennar and Kassala, with a value of $1.5 million, in addition to $500,000 in technical assistance to the Ministry of Health to help it confront the humanitarian disaster caused by the unprecedented floods and torrents in Sudan.
He added that the activities and programs covered by these projects are: reviewing and updating the health emergency preparedness plan, building capacity for the emergency response team of employees and volunteers, strengthening the emergency health system, rehabilitating central public health laboratories, increasing isolation centers, establishing a state public health laboratory, rehabilitating and equipping 255 sites for pandemic monitoring.