Healthy Development:
The World Bank Strategy for Health, Nutrition, and Population Results

Under its new HNP strategy, the World Bank will help developing low-and middle-income countries to improve people's health and guard against the poverty that can result from sudden illness. Poor families often tap into savings or sell what they own to cover the costs of medical care. As a result, all too often people end up falling below the poverty line. Improving the perilous health of millions of the world's poorest people is rightly one of the essential priorities of the global development community in this new century.

Specifically, the Bank will help countries to control priority diseases where they constitute a large part of the burden of disease. However, the Bank will increasingly endeavor to ensure that Bank operational and policy advice support for priority diseases will strengthen the ability of health systems to solve systemic constraints that impair the effectiveness of countries, the Bank, and the international financing community in achieving HNP results.

The World Bank also believes that its support and advice will help countries achieve HNP results in a way that also contributes to their overall fiscal sustainability, economic growth, global competitiveness, and good governance. This new strategy is embedded in the core mission of the Bank to reduce poverty worldwide.