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Economic Impact of COVID-19: Implications for Health Financing in Asia and Pacific

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dc.contributor.authorTandon, Ajay
dc.contributor.authorRoubal, Tomas
dc.contributor.authorMcDonald, Lachlan
dc.contributor.authorCowley, Peter
dc.contributor.authorPalu, Toomas
dc.contributor.authorde Oliveira Cruz, Valeria
dc.contributor.authorEozenou, Patrick
dc.contributor.authorCain, Jewelwayne
dc.contributor.authorTeo, Hui Sin
dc.contributor.authorSchmidt, Martin
dc.contributor.authorPambudi, Eko
dc.contributor.authorPostolovska, Iryna
dc.contributor.authorEvans, David
dc.contributor.authorKurowski, Christoph
dc.date.accessioned2020-10-05T20:11:17Z
dc.date.available2020-10-05T20:11:17Z
dc.date.issued2020-09
dc.description.abstractCoronavirus 2019 (COVID-19’s) impact has gone far beyond its direct effect on morbidity and mortality. In addition to adversely impacting non-COVID health care utilization, the pandemic has resulted in a deep global economic contraction due to lockdown policies and declining demand and supply of goods and services. As a result, most countries are experiencing lower levels of gross domestic product (GDP), rising unemployment, higher levels of impoverishment, and increasing income inequality. Some countries are more vulnerable to the economic contagion resulting from COVID-19, including those implementing more stringent lockdowns and those that are more globally integrated due to their dependence on trade, tourism, and remittances. In addition, countries with preexisting conditions of fiscal weakness due to higher dependence on external grant financing, low tax revenues, and large pre-crisis debt levels are struggling to implement countercyclical mitigative fiscal and monetary policies. In addition to declining economic activity, government revenues have declined, government borrowing is increasing, and public debt levels are projected to skyrocket globally. Higher debt levels will likely imply fiscal tightening for years to come. Implications for health financing are potentially dire, dependent in part on the combination of domestic government, external, and out-of-pocket financing for health that is extant across countries. Tentative projections indicate that, in the absence of reprioritization, growth in public spending for health can decline across most low- and middle-income countries in the region, including becoming negative in some cases, risking reversal of gains made toward expanding universal health coverage in recent years. To reduce the likelihood of such a scenario, and with the caveat that protecting levels of financing will not be effective if resources are not used properly to begin with, ministries of health will need to pay careful attention to planning and budgeting - demonstrating where waste can be reduced and efficiency enhanced - and prioritize within their outlays interventions that are the most cost-effective and equitable. At the same time, ministries of finance should improve the adequacy and predictability of outlays for the sector, taking a multiyear programming perspective and include potential additional resources that will be necessary to procure and deliver a COVID-19 vaccine, once an effective one becomes available. In doing so, they should consider augmenting resources via increasing the scope and breadth of health taxes and proactively seeking out debt relief opportunities, especially if these can be tied to efforts to reprioritize health within overall government budgets where this may be necessary. Whereas there is the perception that the health sector has been flooded with new resources to respond to the pandemic, it remains unclear to what extent these have been additional and not a result of reprogramming of outlays from other areas within health. To the extent COVID-19 presents an opportunity, it is one for removing any doubts that health and the economy are inextricably linked, nudging both ministries of health and finance to reevaluate their priorities, accountabilities, and performance to sustain improvements in both population health, including for ensuring pandemic preparedness, and economic performance.en
dc.identifierhttp://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/882021601529585420/Economic-Impact-of-COVID-19-Implications-for-Health-Financing-in-Asia-and-Pacific
dc.identifier.doi10.1596/34572
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10986/34572
dc.languageEnglish
dc.publisherWorld Bank, Washington, DC
dc.relation.ispartofseriesHealth, Nutrition and Population Discussion Paper;
dc.rightsCC BY 3.0 IGO
dc.rights.holderWorld Bank
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo
dc.subjectHEALTH FINANCING
dc.subjectCORONAVIRUS
dc.subjectCOVID-19
dc.subjectPANDEMIC IMPACT
dc.subjectHEALTH SPENDING
dc.subjectPUBLIC EXPENDITURE
dc.titleEconomic Impact of COVID-19en
dc.title.subtitleImplications for Health Financing in Asia and Pacificen
dc.typeWorking Paperen
dc.typeDocument de travailfr
dc.typeDocumento de trabajoes
dspace.entity.typePublication
okr.crossref.titleEconomic Impact of COVID-19
okr.date.disclosure2020-10-01
okr.doctypePublications & Research
okr.doctypePublications & Research::Working Paper
okr.docurlhttp://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/882021601529585420/Economic-Impact-of-COVID-19-Implications-for-Health-Financing-in-Asia-and-Pacific
okr.guid882021601529585420
okr.identifier.doi10.1596/34572
okr.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1596/34572
okr.identifier.externaldocumentum090224b088300212_5_0
okr.identifier.internaldocumentum32452519
okr.identifier.report153444
okr.importedtrueen
okr.language.supporteden
okr.pdfurlhttp://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/882021601529585420/pdf/Economic-Impact-of-COVID-19-Implications-for-Health-Financing-in-Asia-and-Pacific.pdfen
okr.region.administrativeEast Asia and Pacific
okr.region.geographicalEast Asia
okr.region.geographicalOceania
okr.topicPublic Sector Development::Public Sector Expenditure Policy
okr.topicHealth, Nutrition and Population::Health Economics & Finance
okr.topicHealth, Nutrition and Population::Disease Control & Prevention
okr.topicMacroeconomics and Economic Growth::Business Cycles and Stabilization Policies
okr.unitHealth Nutri & Population SAR 1 (HSAHN)
relation.isAuthorOfPublication837cee1f-30d9-57f4-bb0a-575f65176b3e
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery837cee1f-30d9-57f4-bb0a-575f65176b3e
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