Huffington Post: Not Only Is Good Health for All Achievable — It’s Affordable
Martin McKee, professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and president of the European Public Health Association

“…With support from the Rockefeller Foundation, we looked at five places that had achieved good health at low cost, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Thailand, and the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Each took a different path, reflecting their particular circumstances. … Each had individuals who displayed a political commitment to better health and a willingness to create the resources necessary to achieve it, effective bureaucracies that maintained continuity despite political changes drawing on a shared institutional memory that prevented the same mistakes being made again, policies that reflected the unique national context and had not simply been lifted from somewhere else, and an ability to take advantage of windows of opportunity, even when there were natural disasters. … These findings … show that it is possible to make a real difference despite having very little money. On the other hand, they show that each country must find its own way to better health, taking account of its own particular circumstances. However, it can only do so if the actions of the international community support, rather than undermine it, and that will only happen with a new and fairer world order” (9/3).