World Bank Group Approach and Action Plan for Climate Change and Health
Climate change (CC) impacts on health outcomes, both direct and indirect, are sufficient to jeopardize achieving the World Bank Group’s visions and agendas in poverty reduction, population resilience, and health, nutrition and population (HNP). In...
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| Format: | Strategy Document |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/421451495428198858/Climate-change-and-health-approach-and-action-plan http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27808 |
| Summary: | Climate change (CC) impacts on health
outcomes, both direct and indirect, are sufficient to
jeopardize achieving the World Bank Group’s visions and
agendas in poverty reduction, population resilience, and
health, nutrition and population (HNP). In the last 5 years,
the number of voices calling for stronger international
action on climate change and health has increased, as have
the scale and depth of activities. But current global
efforts in climate and health are inadequately integrated.
As a result, actions to address climate change, including
World Bank Group (WBG) investment and lending, are missing
opportunities to simultaneously promote better health
outcomes and more resilient populations and health sectors.
Accordingly, with the financial support of the Nordic
Development Fund (NDF), the World Bank Group set out to
develop an approach and a 4-year action plan, outlined in
this paper, to integrate health-related climate
considerations into selected WBG sector plans and
investments. The approach and 4-year action plan is to
integrate health-related climate considerations into
selected WBG sector plans and investments. It does so using
the prevailing health sector conceptual framework of
Universal Health Coverage, which brings in the positive and
negative impacts that investments in other sectors and areas
of the economy have on health outcomes. A substantial share
of the impacts that climate has on health are mediated
through interventions in sectors other than health.
Therefore, while reducing GHGs for climate change reasons
will generally produce substantial short- and long-term
benefits for health, that alone is unlikely to maximize the
outcomes of health investments, and in the case of some
investments in non-health sectors it may even negatively
affect health outcomes. This paper proposes a two-pronged
approach. One prong proposes to focus most of the World
Bank’s efforts on improving the climate resilience of the
health sector, both through purely adaptive solutions but
also through improvements to the sector’s sustainable energy
access and efficiency. The other prong proposes to look at
selected investments in other sectors that affect
climate-sensitive health outcomes, to maximize development
impact while minimizing the possibility of maladaptation. As
such, this paper sets out to inform key groups within the
World Bank. It outlines a potential approach for the WBG in
climate and health by considering the current health-climate
change imperative, the evolution of the global policy
environment and the picture today, and global initiatives
and WBG roles now and in the future. It also describes
strategic objectives and potential operational steps and
tools. The underlying premise is that climate affects health
today and has the potential to significantly impact global
health and poverty reduction in the future, and that there
exists a number of options for the WBG and its partner
countries to prevent an added burden of illness or death
from a changing climate. |
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