Pierre-Louis, Anne Maryse ; El-Saharty, Sameh ; Stanciole, Anderson ; Jonas, Olga ; Pascual, F. Brian ; Oelrichs, Robert ; Lorenzo, Montserrat Meiro ; Villafana, Tonya ; Lavadenz, Fernando ; Rock, Marcia
Strengthening public health, that is,improving the health of whole populations through actionacross all relevant sectors is at the heart of the WorldBank's mission. This policy note takes stock of theglobal progress in public health over the past decade; laysout the challenges that must be addressed for this progressto be sustained and accelerated; and proposes an approachfor the Bank to maximize its contribution to public healthin the years ahead. This note comes at a critical juncture,given the important gains made in public health over thepast decade. Key global indicators, including lifeexpectancy at birth, under-five mortality and maternalmortality, have shown steady improvement, while initiativessuch as the scale-up of polio vaccination and thedistribution of bed nets to combat malaria have savedmillions of lives. The Bank is proud to have worked withcountries and development partners to contribute to theseachievements. The note emphasizes that the Bank will need toroot its future public health efforts in its areas ofcomparative advantage, including its capacity to analyze theeconomic and development impact of health investments, andits extensive experience in working across sectors forhealth results. The Bank finances investments in all thesectors that impact health, including education, socialprotection, infrastructure, water and sanitation andtransportation, to name a few, and is well placed to helpmobilize such sectors through coordinated, population-basedinterventions to improve health and accelerate development.Given its analytic capability, the Bank has a potentiallycritical role to play in focusing finite budgets on the mostcost-effective actions, particularly in prevention andhealth promotion.
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