GENEVA, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) rolled out its first investment case on Wednesday, which requires an investment of 14.1 billion U.S. dollars from 2019 to 2023 to save up to 30 million lives worldwide.
The WHO said the estimate, including a 10 billion dollars' base budget, 2.5 billion dollars for humanitarian response and 1.6 billion dollars for polio eradication, represents a 14 percent increase of the base budget only, instead of the overall budget, over the previous five-year period.
The total amount would help save up to 30 million lives, add up to 100 million years of healthy living to the world's population, and add up to four percent of economic growth in low and middle-income countries by 2023, it said.
Also, the investment would help achieve the "triple billion" targets of the WHO's General Program of Work: one billion more people benefiting from universal health coverage, one billion more people better protected from health emergencies, and one billion more people enjoying better health and well-being.
With the investment, the WHO said it can better serve and guide governments and partners in their efforts to improve the health of their populations, through new mechanisms to measure success that ensures a strict model of accountability, while setting ambitious targets for savings and efficiencies.
The plan, in particular, focuses on equity, gender and rights-based approaches that aim to close gaps in health service coverage and empower individuals and communities to ensure no one is left behind.
"This is the first time we have estimated the results we could achieve and the impact we could deliver with the right resources," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "Our investment case isn't only about investing in an institution, it's about investing in people, and in the healthier, safer, fairer world we all want."
