PR-2000-00/ Template Page 1 of 4

Press Release WHO/2 18 January 2000

Thirteen years after the Brundtland Commission established the indisputable link between environment and development, a new expert Commission is being launched to clarify the link between health and poverty reduction.

The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH), launched today in Geneva by WHO Director-General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, will over a two-year period produce a series of studies on how concrete health interventions can lead to economic growth and reduce inequity in developing countries. It will recommend a set of measures designed to maximize the poverty reduction and economic development benefits of health sector investment.

The Commission, which is chaired by Harvard professor Dr Jeffrey Sachs brings together 15 of the world leading economists and economic policy makers. Among the members are representatives from the World bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, the Economic commission on Africa and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development as well as leading economic development experts, such as former Indian Finance Minister Manmohan Singh and Thai Deputy Prime Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi. (Complete list of members is enclosed.)

"The World Bank's 1993 World Development Report showed us how important health is to development," Dr Brundtland said at the launch. "Since then, issues such as debt relief, trade negotiations, the AIDS crisis, essential drug availability and the spiralling of health care costs have left no doubt that health plays a central role in the world economy. Yet, few finance officials and development economists have so far explored the potential importance of health investment as an instrument for reducing poverty. The goal of this Commission and its pre-eminent thinkers is to show once and for all that health must be at the heart of development," said Dr Brundtland.

The CMH will assess critically and generate further evidence on:

The nature magnitude of the economic outcomes (income and productivity growth, poverty reduction and social protection) of investing in health; The economics of incentives for research and development of drugs and

http://www.cmhealth.org/oldsite/whopress.html 12/10/01 PR-2000-00/ Template Page 2 of 4

vaccines that address diseases primarily affecting the poor; Effective and equitable mobilization of resources required to deal with major disease problems of the poor and to develop and sustain health systems more generally; Health and international economic relations (such as trade-related issues); Development assistance and health (including consideration of efficiency in use of assistance oriented to improving health, consequences of adjustment and stabilization policies for health and the health sector, and debt relief); and Costs and efficiency in addressing major diseases of the poor.

The five topics listed above will each be examined by a working group consisting of several members of the Commission, plus WHO staff and other experts. A substantial number of CMH and working group meetings will be held at venues in developing countries. These meetings outside Geneva will both allow input from local academics and government officials and provide a venue for dissemination of, and feedback on, drafts of reports.

The Commission will produce a final report by the end of next year (2001).

Work in the first area – the expected impact of health investments on poverty reduction and economic growth - has already begun and preliminary results will be available by the World Health Assembly in May 2000. Further interim products from the working groups will be ready as early as September 2000.

"The availability of increasingly powerful and inexpensive measures to improve health elevates the potential economic significance of public health measures from simply being efforts to improve health, important as that is, to being a lever for economic growth and poverty reduction," says Dr Sachs. "Yet there remains significant disagreement as to what are the best investments in health in terms of poverty reduction and economic development. This Commission is designed to provide some powerful answers to many of these questions.

"The world must invest more, and more wisely, in public health. This Commission will help to find effective ways to accomplish this urgent task," added Professor Sachs.

THE COMMISSION ON MACROECONOMICS AND HEALTH: List of Members

Professor Jeffrey Sachs (Chair) Professor at Harvard University and Director, Center for International Development at Harvard University, Boston, USA Nationality: USA

Dr Isher Judge Ahluwalia Director and Chief Executive, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi, India Nationality: India

http://www.cmhealth.org/oldsite/whopress.html 12/10/01 PR-2000-00/ Template Page 3 of 4

Mr K.Y. Amoako Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, UN Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Nationality: Ghana

Dr Eduardo Aninat Former Minister of Finance, Chile and Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund Nationality: Chile

Daniel Cohen Professor of Economics, Ecole normale supérieure, Paris, France Nationality: France

Mr Zephirin Diabre Associate Administrator, United Nations Development Programme, New York, USA Nationality: Burkino Faso

Mr Eduardo Doryan Vice President, The World Bank, Washington, DC USA Nationality: Costa Rica

Professor Robert W. Fogel Professor of Economics, Center for Population Economics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, USA Nationality: Ghana

Ms Nora Lustig Deputy Director, The World Development Report, The World Bank, and Director, Inter American Development Bank, Washington, DC, USA Nationality: Argentina

Professor Anne Mills Head, Health Economics and Financing Programme, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK Nationality: UK

Mr Thorvald Moe Deputy Secretary General, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, France Nationality: Norway

Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Commerce, Thailand, and incoming Director General, World Trade Organization Nationality: Thailand

Professor Eisuke Sakakibara

http://www.cmhealth.org/oldsite/whopress.html 12/10/01 PR-2000-00/ Template Page 4 of 4

Professor Global Security Research Center, Keio University and former Senior Official in Ministry of Finance, Tokyo Japan Nationality: Japan

Dr Manmohan Singh Member of Rajya Sabha, and former Minister of Finance, Government of India, New Delhi, India Nationality: India

Professor Laura Tyson Dean, The Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley Berkeley, CA, USA Nationality: USA

For further information from WHO, journalists can contact Mr Gregory Hartl, Office of Press and Public Relations, WHO, Geneva, tel (+41 22) 791 4458, fax (+41 22) 791 4858. E-mail: [email protected] or Mr Jon Lidén, WHO, Geneva, tel (41 22) 791 3982, fax (41 22) 791 4881, E- Mail: [email protected].

All WHO Press Releases, Fact Sheets and Features can be obtained on Internet on the WHO home page http://www.who.ch/

http://www.cmhealth.org/oldsite/whopress.html 12/10/01