The Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) – a financing mechanism housed at the World Bank – is designed to provide an additional source of financing to help the world’s poorest countries respond to cross-border, large-scale outbreaks. The PEF complements the much larger role that IDA, the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries, and other international organizations and donors play in financing outbreak response. The PEF’s design is unique in that payments can go directly to governments and pre-approved frontline responder organizations (such as WHO & UNICEF) and it can do so through either its cash window — or once triggered through its insurance window.