Reorienting economies to deliver health for all

A collage of health-related images The World Health Organization Council on the Economics of Health for All, chaired by a UCL researcher, has outlined a bold new path to reorient economies to deliver health for all in the first-ever report of its kind. The council, created by WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in November 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and chaired by Professor Mariana Mazzucato (UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose), has spent the last two years rethinking the economy from a "health for all" perspective, and pushing the principle that human and planetary health must be at the heart of how we design our social, health and economic systems and policies. Launched in conjunction with the Seventy-sixth World Health Assembly, the report, entitled Health for All: Transforming economies to deliver what matters , draws on the council's previous work and provides a new narrative grounded in the latest economic wisdom to reorient economies to deliver health for all across four interrelated themes with specific recommendations under each: Professor Mariana Mazzucato, chair of the council, said: "Over the past two years, the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All has worked to craft a new economic narrative - one that transforms financing for health from an expenditure to an investment. We have examined the changes needed - including to the structure of patents, public-private partnerships, and budgets - to design an economy that delivers health for all.