Magnitude of Healthcare Needs

Globally there exists an enormous mismatch in the health financing needs of different countries and their actual health expenditure. Developing countries account for 84 per cent of global population, 90 per cent of global disease burden, but only 12 per cent of global health spending. The underlying population and epidemiological dynamics are estimated to exert profound influence on the future health needs of these countries. The world’s population is projected to grow to 7.5 billion by 2020 and 9 billion by 2050. Most of this growth is expected to take place in the developing countries with the population of 50 poorest countries expected to double by 2050.

There is also an expected shift in demographics characterised by declining but still high population growth. This factor coupled with increasing life expectancy implies that developing countries will face significant increases in population of all age groups. As a result of this population momentum, large numbers of youth will enter the labour force with the numbers of elderly persons also increasing. The situation calls for concerted government initiatives to foster policies of economic growth with that of its human resource development programmes, the latter requiring to focus on implementing suitable training and education policies. To effectively aid such a growth/developmental path, new structures of resource mobilisation and health/educational financing efforts need to be evolved.