As the world prepares for the 2025 U.N. General Assembly's fourth high-level meeting on noncommunicable diseases, health care systems face a perfect storm: rising treatment costs, critical workforce shortages, and diminishing development assistance. While technology offers promising health care solutions, the development sector must move past both techno-skepticism and silver-bullet thinking to realize its potential.
According to the World Health Organization, up to 40% of resources spent in health are wasted through inefficiencies such as unnecessary interventions, administrative complexity, inflated pricing, and fraud.
In the United States alone, this wasteful spending could reach $935 billion — exceeding the annual federal defense budget. These challenges hit lower-middle-income countries particularly hard, where health development funding could decline by up to 24% over the next six years.
About the author
Héctor Pourtalé
Héctor Pourtalé is the executive director of the Movement Health Foundation. With experience in public affairs, marketing project management, and commercial excellence analysis, he works to drive high-impact global health care solutions. He holds a degree in philosophy from Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum and earned his MBA from IAE Business School.
