Brief on the Measurement of Value in the Economy by the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All

LIVE: Launch of new #Economy4Health brief

From The World Health organization

 

Media www.rajawalisiber.com – Speakers: · Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General · Professor Mariana Mazzucato, Chair of the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All and Founding Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London. · Professor Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.

Professor Ilona Kickbusch, Founding director and chair of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. The Briefing will take place on the sidelines of the Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit, taking place in London under the auspices of the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations).

What: In 2020, the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All notes in the Brief it is issuing today, global GDP increased by $2.2 trillion because of expenditure on armaments while only a fraction of that – just $50 billion – is needed to vaccinate the entire world, and just $23 billion is needed to fund the ACT-Accelerator. No amount of tinkering with GDP as the measure of progress can address the fundamental schism between the goal of Health for All and what is presently valued.

Given this reality, the Council proposes the following values foundational for Health for All and the centrepieces of a new system of value and measurement:

1. Valuing planetary health

2. Valuing the diverse social foundations and activities that promote equity

3. Valuing human health and wellbeing The road to a Health for All economy starts with valuing the right things to do; only then can we focus on doing things with the right values and rethinking and building a whole-of-society approach to economic activity and development.

A key finding driving this rethink is the fact that women do more unpaid work than men, sometimes as much as 2.5 hours per day more.

 

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