A landmark report charts a path to realigning economies to ensure health for all

In the first-ever report In a first of its kind, the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All has charted a bold new path for reorienting economies to deliver what matters – health for all.

Established by WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in November 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and chaired by Professor Mariana Mazzucato, the Council has spent the last two years rethinking economics from a health-for-all perspective and pushing the strong principle that human and planetary health must be at the heart of how we design our social, health and economic systems and policies.

The Council has set out a bold new narrative based on new economic wisdom to reorient economies to deliver health for all through four interrelated themes:

1. Value – valuing and measuring what is important through new economic metrics;
2. Finance – how to finance health for all as a long-term investment, not a short-term expense;
3. Innovation – how to improve health innovations for the common good;
4. Capacity – how to strengthen the dynamic capacity of the public sector to achieve health for all.

“Two years ago, I asked a team of the world’s leading economists and public health experts – all women – to make a paradigm shift. Now, instead of seeing health for all as a servant of economic growth, we have a plan to structure economic activity in a way that will allow us to achieve the goal of all people having access to basic health services faster and with better results,” said Dr. Tedros.

“Over the past two years, the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All has been working to create a new economic narrative – one that transforms health financing from an expenditure to an investment,” said Council Chair Professor Mariana Mazzucato. “We examined the necessary changes – including the patent structure, public-private partnerships and budgets – to design an economy that delivers Health for All. In our final report, we call for a new economic policy that is not about market manipulation, but about proactive and collaborative market shaping that prioritizes human and planetary health.”

Released today as part of the Seventy-sixth World Health Assembly, the report entitled Health for All: Transforming Economies to Deliver What Matters (https://www.who.int/groups/who-council-on-the-economics-of-health-for-all), provides a new framework built on the above four pillars, with specific recommendations under each – a drawing from the previous of the work of the Council.

Key recommendations include:

• We need to value and measure the things that really matter – human and planetary flourishing – rather than pursuing economic growth and maximizing GDP regardless of the consequences. To achieve health for all, governments must rethink values ​​and reshape and reorient the economy based on social and planetary well-being, guided by new benchmarks.
• A fundamental revision of national and international health financing systems is needed, in order to treat health expenditures as a long-term investment. Achieving health for all will require both more money and better financing.
• Innovations require collective intelligence—they are never the product of just one company or government agency. But if innovation is not managed for the common good, many people remain excluded from its benefits. A new end-to-end health innovation ecosystem that prioritizes the common good is needed.
• As the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear, the quality and capacity of government matter. Effective governments are not the smallest, but those that are well designed and adequately resourced, both financially and in terms of their people and infrastructure. Reinvestment in government capacity is key to achieving Health for All.

The report also makes suggestions on what can be done in practice to bring about the changes needed to reorient economic value measures, health financing, innovation and public sector capacity building in the service of health for all. Among them, the report mentions several examples, including:

• South Africa’s mRNA Technology Hub: A values-driven system that seeks to drive real innovation, funding and capacity from before;
• Brazilian public investment in a health-industrial complex that serves the common good;
• Regional development banks as drivers of change in the global south;

• The Wellbeing Economy Alliance – an alliance of several governments and over 600 other organizations working together to transform economic systems in the service of life;
• Approaches to financing National Action Plans (NAPs) on antimicrobial resistance through a multisectoral joint budget, given that most NAPs remain unfunded.

The recommendations included in the report could change the way countries view and finance health. WHO calls on policy makers, civil society and members of the health and economic communities to fully consider the recommendations and use them as a compass for developing new economic policies and structures that can move us towards making health for all a reality.