Resilient Economies Have Healthy People, Healthy People Create Resilient Economies
Improving the effectiveness of development assistance in health to develop resilient
Economies have their ups and downs. Market crashes, financial crises and bubbles are the result of unregulated speculative practices that destroy confidence in governments and the financial sector. We still remember the crash of 1929 and are still suffering from the crash of 2008-09. In between, there have been many other smaller crashes such as the DOT.COM bubble and others.
Having a strong social net that protects the poor from these “economic shocks” is the government’s responsibility. It is not the financial sector, nor the non-profit’s job. Although, it helps to have a socially responsible financial sector with transparent practices and a responsive non-profit sector that is also transparent and efficient. It is the government’s job to legislate and implement legislation that prevents crashes from happening again and that protect people from the crashes when they do happen. The best thing governments can do is to have healthy social policies and programs that help people get back into the job market as soon as possible. In order to work, people need to be healthy and for that, they need a health system that understands and serves their needs. Healthy people that can work will allow the country to recover from crashes and financial crises and have a rapid economic recovery.
That is why, having an effective health system is essential for the economy. Here is when a Malawian saying comes to mind: “You must fix your roof in the dry season”. In other words, governments must create and implement social policies and programs that include developing and strengthening the effectiveness of their health system when the economy is good and taxes are coming in. So here is what to do over the next 10 years to develop a health system that will help people recover from their economic crises and prevent the deaths that are significantly higher among the poor and vulnerable; women and children:
- Develop a health sector 10-year development plan that includes implementing health programs that prevent and control at least the country’s top 10 health problems, starting with MCH programs;
- Conduct a meeting with all donors, development banks and partners to jointly set the goal of nationwide coverage of primary healthcare services by ensuring there is a health center or clinic that takes care of at most 10,000 people and is able to implement these programs nationwide in 10 years;
- Collaborate with donors and partners to improve the quality of healthcare in at least 10% of the countries’ existing government-run hospitals, health centers and clinics over the next 10 years;
- Set and enforce accreditation requirements and quality standards to regulate all private providers and facilities. An annual registration fee will be collected from private healthcare companies to cover the cost of the accreditation and inspection program;
- Make no excuses to not develop the health sector in 10 years.
If you want to learn more about improving aid effectiveness to develop healthy health systems, I invite you to sign up for the free RGH webinar entitled “Aid Effectiveness in Global Health: Getting Back to Basics in Global Health”.
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