The World Bank Group on Monday launched a strategy in Accra, Ghana’s capital, aimed at strengthening health, jobs, and development for the West and Central African region.
The World Bank Health, Nutrition and Population strategy, dubbed “Fit to Prosper: Investing in Health for Jobs and Development in Western and Central Africa,” provides a framework to help countries prioritize and make strategic shifts within constrained fiscal space.
Launching the initiative, World Bank Group Vice President for the People Vice Presidency Mamta Murthi said the health initiative for the region is critical due to the significant impact of the region’s growing population on the global demographic story.
“Between now and 2050 some 200 million children are going to be born in this region, and this is almost one in every five young people on the planet,” Murthi highlighted.
As part of the global strategy to provide quality and affordable health services to 1.5 billion people by 2030 globally, the official said the World Bank Group has set itself the goal to reach at least 200 million people across Western and Central Africa.
According to her, the World Bank group also targets to reach 400 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa with more and better health services. “In order to do that, we really want to focus our efforts, our policy advice, our financing, our technical assistance, and our advocacy on primary health care, because it’s the most cost-effective way of reaching a large number of people.”
Julius Debrah, chief of staff to Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, described the theme of the initiative as both timely and transformative, “challenging countries to reframe health as a driver of growth, not merely a cost to manage.”
Debrah said the strategy aligns with Ghana’s own national vision of achieving universal health coverage, strengthening health systems, and ensuring that every citizen has access to quality health care, regardless of location or income status.
The initiative is also in line with the Accra Reset strategy, a head-of-state initiative to rebuild global development cooperation around practical sovereignty, execution capacity, and shared prosperity to overcome donor dependency, geopolitical vulnerability, and geostrategic marginalization. Enditem
Source: Xinhua
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