Challenges and Opportunities in the Post-COVID World
In 1993, the World Bank published its World Development Report, Investing in Health. Aimed at finance ministers and aid donors, the report’s central message was that targeted spending on cost-effective interventions for high-burden diseases could rapidly improve population-wide health outcomes, boost the economy, and improve human welfare. Twenty years later, this message was echoed in the first report of the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (CIH 1.0), “Global health 2035: a world converging within a generation” (GH2035).
In 2018, five years after publication of GH2035, the 40th anniversary of the Alma-Ata Declaration gave the CIH an opportunity to assess progress towards grand convergence and to reflect on the future of the global push for universal health coverage (UHC). The second report of the CIH (CIH 2.0) was called “Alma-Ata at 40: reflections from the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health.”
Rising geopolitical tensions, increasingly manifest climate change, growth in nationalistic populism, dwindling concern for global health, slowed progress towards UHC, and, most significantly, the COVID-19 pandemic, have defined the six years since CIH 2.0. A third report from the CIH (CIH 3.0), “Global health 2050: challenges and opportunities in the post-COVID world” (GH2050), will assess these challenges—as well as opportunities for investment in health in the post-COVID era. It extends the time frame under consideration from 2035 to 2050. It also doubles the authorship to 50 authors, with strong representation of scholars in low- and middle-income countries. The CIH 3.0 report will be launched at the World Health Summit in October, 2024, in Berlin, Germany.
