Mastercard is a technology company in the global payments industry committed to leading the way toward a World Beyond Cash™. Mastercard is also a business-to-business firm, providing franchise, technology and advisory services to commercial, nonprofit and public sector customers who then go on to serve their clients. Mastercard aims to achieve financial inclusion by reaching 500 million previously excluded people, including 40 million merchants, by 2050. They emphasise public-private partnerships and have successfully launched projects in over 50 countries, bringing millions into the formal economy. To succeed, tailored solutions should leverage existing payment infrastructure and involve various players like development organisations and governments.

The Ethiopia Wellness Pass partnership project, launched on 17 June 2022, aims to test a way to address critical health challenges faced by pastoral, climate-affected and conflict-affected populations. The project seeks to provide consistent immunisation data even when individuals’ lives are disrupted due to conflict, climate change or other factors. The Wellness Pass has transitioned from its original Electronic Immunization Register (EIR) to integrate with DHIS2, the world’s largest health management information system. This upgrade ensures streamlined vaccination history retrieval.

The Wellness Pass e-cards offer offline data storage and include biometrically derived identity tokens for easy identification. They serve as a secure vault for immunisation status information, monitoring and reporting – eliminating lost paperwork. As of June 2024, over 1.2 million Wellness Pass cards were strategically distributed to 600 health facilities across Ethiopia. Over 1,200 professionals were trained from the facilities where the tracker is deployed. The project now focuses on optimisation, technical development, platform maintenance and sustainability. Integration with Dagu for vaccine stock management and compatibility with new devices are under discussion for the next phase of the project. The Wellness Pass contributes to Ethiopia’s digital health transformation, bridging gaps in immunisation data accessibility. The Ethiopia Wellness Pass project represents a vital step toward resilient health systems, ensuring that critical immunisation records remain accessible even in challenging circumstances.

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mastercard committed up to US$ 25 million in 2020 to catalyse the initial work of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator. In June 2021, on the occasion of the Gavi COVAX AMC Summit, Mastercard committed US$ 25 million to Gavi to support the core work of COVAX, including US$ 10 million to help deploy and deliver vaccines to lower-income countries, including remote and marginalised communities, through the Mastercard Wellness Pass. Mastercard also established a global fundraising campaign, connecting with customers and cardholders, raising US$ 3 million for Gavi. This fundraising campaign concluded at the end of 2022.

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