So while good health needs a technical response, it certainly needs a political response. I am convinced that the full economic cost of communicable diseases has been under-estimated . What would Africa s economies be like now if malaria had been effectively controlled 30 years ago. That poverty causes ill health is well known. But good health can fuel the engine of development.
Healthy people add significant momentum to the forces of economic development and poverty reduction.
This is the case we have to make. Which is why the CMH includes some of the world s leading economic thinkers. People to whom policy makers turn when they need advice not just about individual sectors of the economy but about the bigger picture. Also among your number are policy makers with experience at the very highest levels of government. You know how governments work, what kind of information they need to make decisions.