“Many of the determinants of health among the
poor lie outside the health sector. Thus, achieving better health among the poor requires
a broad approach in which WHO and Member States engage with others responsible for
economic and social development to ensure that all national policies, including those of
the health sector, improve and protect the health of the poor. This means, for example,
striving to make globalization more inclusive and to distribute its benefits more
equitably.”Dr.
Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General WHO
Geneva, 23 November 1999
Health and Development
What are the
links between health and development? How can better health contribute to reducing
poverty? What is the relationship between health and globalization, and how can they
benefit from each other? These are only some of the complex questions the Department of
Health and Development (HDE) is currently exploring, with the aim of developing
concrete policies and strategies.
The growing recognition that good health is part of
reducing poverty,
and that improved health can be a powerful exit route from poverty, led to the creation of
HDE in 1999. The ambitious mission of this department is to integrate health into
development policies and practices in order to reduce poverty and promote human
development, taking into consideration increasing globalization.
By putting health in the context of important issues such as human
rights, poverty reduction, and globalization, HDE serves as a broad “think tank”
within WHO advocating for a stronger role for health in poverty reduction
strategies and striving to mitigate the harmful effects of globalization. In other words,
HDE is setting the necessary framework for tackling WHO’s other goals, such as
combating diseases and discovering new vaccines.
Our Goal
To equip governments, international development partners and civil
society with knowledge and skills
- to tackle new and emerging issues to health across sectors and across borders that
affect health and
- to integrate health into overall poverty reduction strategies to improve health of the
poor and to promote sustainable development
Our work areas
Our functions
- Developing policies and influencing international development agendas by integrating
health dimensions into current development thinking.
- Promoting international policy coherence between health, trade and investment and across
sectors, between health and agriculture, energy, transport, and housing.
- Building and sharing the knowledge base on the linkage between development policies and
health.
- Developing tools, guides and training for country policy decision makers and WHO
staff.
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