How 'financial savvy' can prevent future pandemics

What can the global health community learn from reinsurance companies like Swiss Re and Munich Re about stemming pandemics before they occur? The Ebola outbreak in West Africa highlighted not only the weakness of health systems, but also the lack of dialogue between global health professionals, risk analysts and private sector actors according to World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “There was not a lot of financial savvy in the global health community,” Kim told Devex Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar on the sidelines of last week’s World Bank spring meetings in Washington, D.C. Bringing these groups of people together in a dialogue will be essential to making targeted investments, building health systems and pooling in the right resources according to the World Bank chief — all measures necessary to prevent future pandemics. And these dialogues are happening, Kim said. “For example at the Institute of Medicine here in town, we’re involved in a process where the World Health Organization, and Swiss Re and Munich Re are together in a room, talking about how can these systems be put together,” Kim said. Such dialogues form the basis of Kim’s plan to prevent future pandemics, known as the pandemic emergency facility — an initiative he introduced during a lecture at Georgetown University in January. Kim’s idea is to work with financial analysts, global health experts and private sector actors to develop a dependable method to prevent and quickly respond to future health emergencies — similar to an insurance policy. Kim said we’re not ready yet, but that this concept has backing from several global leaders, including Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, and officials from the Japanese, Chinese and Turkish governments. “We cannot stop until that whole system is in place,” Kim said. “I think we have a lot of the stars aligned, but now it’s going to take just driving and driving and driving to put it into place.” See more of the conversation between Devex and the World Bank chief, and our coverage of the 2015 Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund. Read more international development news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive the latest from the world’s leading donors and decision-makers — emailed to you FREE every business day.