Ethiopia's Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) and development partners signed a Joint Financial Arrangement (JFA) on 15 July 2015 to commit resources to a pooled funding mechanism for health. The signing ceremony took place at the side-lines of the Third Financing for Development (FFD3) conference in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia was one of the first countries to sign a national International Health Partnership (IHP) compact in 2008 to improve aid effectiveness in the health sector. A year later, the Government signed the first JFA with a number of IHP+ partners. The JFA facilitated pooled funding mechanism, the MDG Performance Fund (MDG PF), has been a great success story for all stakeholders in the health sector, bringing more resource to underfunded health programmes.

Dr Kesetebirhan Admassu, Minister of Health, acknowledged the partners contributions to Ethiopia's success in improving the health of its people. "We would have not succeeded in such scale without the MDG Performance Fund", the Minister said. Ato Ahmed Shide, State Minister of Finance and Economic Development (MOFED), further thanked the development partners and reiterated MOFED's commitment to continue strengthening the Ethiopian health sector.

The new Sustainable Development Goals Performance Fund (SDG PF), the successor of the MDG PF, will be managed by the FMoH. It will provide specific grants to underfunded priority areas within the framework of country's Health Sector Transformation Plan (HSTP) improving the quality and equity of health services across the country.

"The revised Joint Financial Arrangement presents a unique opportunity to take the excellent collaboration between the Federal Ministry of Health and the health sector partners in Ethiopia beyond the MDGs and to drive forward Ethiopia’s ambitious health agenda," said Dr Pierre M'Pele-Kilebou, WHO Representative to Ethiopia, on behalf of all the United Nations agencies – UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank and WHO – as well as representing the Health, Population and Nutrition (HPN) partners' group, which WHO is co-chairing with the Spanish Development Cooperation.

The signing of the new funding commitment for health took in the presence of Dr Kesetebirhan Admasu, Minister of Health of Ethiopia; Ato Ahmed Shide, State Minister of Finance and Economic Development of Ethiopia; Seán Sherlock, Minister of State for Development, Trade Promotion and North South Cooperation of Ireland; as well as Ambassadors, Heads of Agencies and other dignitaries from the UK Department for International Development, European Union, Italian Cooperation, the Kingdom of Netherlands, WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank.