Financing health for all : increase, transform and redirect

Abstract

The new WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All recognizes that health and economies are deeply intertwined. Indeed, economic development could improve health and well-being. Leveraging its platform, the Council demands now, more than ever, the need for clear, ambitious goals to catalyse and focus investments and action, and to put priority on financing health as a long-term investment and not a short-term cost. The Council has written this brief to focus on how to finance Health for All. There are two key dimensions: more finance and better finance. By moving to a new paradigm where health is an investment, governments can overcome internal fiscal limits and transform the relationship between public and private sectors, towards common goals. In other words, increasing financing is not enough: the quality of finance is crucial to delivering Health for All. This mission can be achieved by designing policies to reach Health for All now by realigning finance from all sectors and sources through conditionality’s that fuel symbiotic gains in the public interest. This brief proposes specific actions for governments and multilateral organizations. These actions should strengthen health systems to ensure access to life-saving and life-improving products and services; and to improve robust socioeconomic conditions across sectors that recognize the co-benefits of Health for All from a whole-of-government approach.