CHANGE CANNOT WAIT

Building Resilient Health Systems in the Shadow of COVID-19

By Sulzhan Bali, Zara Shubber, and Feng Zhao

The devastating health, economic, and societal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic remain on every continent. This global pandemic underscored how unprepared we are for a public-health emergency of staggering proportions. And yet potentially graver health threats loom. The increasing number of acute infectious diseases combined with trends such as population aging, chronic-disease burdens, and climate change raises the risk of syndemics—events in which two or more diseases adversely interact with each other— and with political and economic conditions of inequality and poverty. The only way to prevent, prepare for, and manage these threats is by building resilient health systems to withstand shocks and improve health outcomes between crises.

Using country examples, this report shows how strengthening resilience is within every country’s reach, even those with low incomes. It describes the key features of resilient systems as integrated systems that are aware of threats; agile in response to evolving needs; absorptive of shocks; adaptive to minimize disruptions; and able to transform after crises based on lessons learned. The report makes recommendations for countries to operationalize resilience based on a framework that prioritizes investments according to their impact.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT

October 2023. 120 pages.

Stock no. C211953

(ISBN: 978-1-4648-1953-7). US$43.95

September 2023. 100 pages.

Stock no. C212015

(ISBN: 978-1-4648-2015-1). US$43.95