The report “Global Spending on Health: Weathering the Storm” is based on the newly updated Global Health Expenditure Database (GHED). It is the 4th in a series of annual reports on global health spending that WHO has produced since 2017. The report was led by the WHO health financing team, with important contributions from Regional Office health financing experts and also from World Bank and OECD colleagues.
The 2020 report analyzes global health spending for 190 countries from 2000 to 2018 and provides insights as to the health spending trajectory towards the SDGs prior to the COVID-19 crisis. It also provides, for the first time anywhere and based on an extensive data collection effort, an analysis of how health spending has changed during 2020 in response to the crisis. The report therefore combines World Bank/IMF projections of the macro-fiscal impact of the COVID-19 crisis with an analysis of the historical determinants of health spending patterns and UHC indicators to draw out the likely implications of 2020 for future health spending, highlighting key policy and monitoring concerns.
The release of the report was accompanied by a launch event held on December 9, 2020 via Zoom and organized by WHO.
The following topics were discussed in three different panel sessions:
- Advocate the Global Health Expenditure Database as a global public good.
- Inform the global health community on the health spending and health financing dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic, based on available data.
- Inspire policy discussion on how to improve public spending performance to sustain progress towards UHC.
- Promote the value of policy of having transparently produced health expenditure data based on internationally comparable classifications.
The complete report can be found attached for download.
