Tony Elumelu, Chairman of the United Bank for Africa Group (UBA), on Monday, urged global stakeholders to prioritize climate financing to enhance healthcare delivery.
Gatekeepers News reports that he emphasized this during his speech at the Abu Dhabi Health Forum in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Elumelu highlighted the significant connection between renewable energy and healthcare, citing climate change as the common link.
He emphasized that while considerable focus has been on climate financing for renewable energy and climate change adaptation projects, the healthcare aspect of climate change has been overlooked. 
He said: “We hear so much about available climate financing for renewable energy projects, as well as climate change adaptation and resilience projects — but what about unlocking climate funding for healthcare delivery as well — particularly on the margins where climate change is leading to new diseases, or diseases appearing in place they were not seen before.
Elumelu, who doubles as the Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), said as healthcare issues are becoming more severe due to climate change, attention should be directed at how climate funds can be accessed to address healthcare as well.
“With private sector innovation, startup funding from foundations and financial institutions, health care policies from national and global health systems, investments from all as well as cross-sector collaboration, we can definitely move humanity forward,” he explained.
Elemelu also pointed out on the global stage that there are significant imbalances between rich and poor countries in quality of health outcomes, and excessive investments in R&D in pharma, medical devices and practices for health conditions.
He further explained the implications of the inequality. According to him, the quality of healthcare in the world’s poorest countries can have an impact on the richest countries.
He said: “The world is interconnected and climate change is making disease transmission happen faster. Covid started in China and quickly spread to all parts of the world.
“The lesson here is that we should be interested in global health equity and not just national health because poor health outcomes affect all everywhere.
“Speaking frankly, Africa is behind, with limited budgets and poor healthcare infrastructure.”
