The World Bank Group today announced an ambitious plan to support countries in delivering quality, affordable health services to 1.5 billion people by 2030. This is part of a larger global effort to provide a basic standard of care through every stage of a person’s life—infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
For decades, the World Bank Group has helped provide health
services for women and children in more than 100 countries. A focused effort to
become faster, work better with partners, and bring in the private sector has
enabled the 80-year-old institution to pursue greater scale and impact.
The strategy to reach 1.5 billion people is focused on three
core elements:
- Expanding focus from maternal and child health to include coverage throughout a person’s lifetime, including non-communicable diseases.
- Expanding operations to hard-to-reach areas, including remote villages, cities, and countries.
- Working with governments to cut unnecessary fees and other financial barriers to health care.
- To be counted toward this goal, a person must be seen and treated by a health-care worker via an in-person visit or telehealth.
“Providing a basic standard of care for people throughout
their lives is critical for development,” said Ajay Banga, World Bank Group
President. “This ambition won’t be realized with a solo effort. It will require
partners, a coalition of public and private sector, working together to expand
access to health care services.”
Today, around 2 billion people face severe financial
hardship when paying for health services. Intertwined challenges, such as
climate change, pandemics, conflicts, societal aging, and a projected shortfall
of 10 million health-care workers by 2030, exacerbate the cycle of poverty and
inequality.
The World Bank Group will combine financing, knowledge, and
partnerships to address this challenge.
All elements of the Bank’s financing capabilities are
positioned to be called upon depending on a country’s unique need and stage of
development to reach 1.5 billion people.
For countries most in need, IDA financing will make it
possible to bring health-care workers into communities where people may
otherwise have no access to services. In middle-income countries, IBRD will
deploy financing to incentivize government investments in health and
regulations that move a country forward.
With regulatory certainty and reliable governance in place,
it opens the door for more private sector investments, especially in local
production of medications and protective gear.
Strong partnerships will be critical for the World Bank
Group to achieve results in health. The World Bank Group will fall short if it
does not work hand-in-hand—faster and better—with non-government organizations,
the private sector, and civil society. The World Bank Group welcomes Japan’s
announcement to launch a Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Knowledge Hub to
enhance health and finance ministries' capacity, an initiative supported by the
Bank and the World Health Organization.
The goal to deliver quality, affordable health services to 1.5 billion people by 2030 is one of the more recent examples of the World Bank Group’s commitment to become more impact-oriented and is the byproduct of a concerted effort to build a better bank.
0 comments:
Post a Comment