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World Bank health initiative “trampling on the dignity and needs of people”

23 January 2014

November 2013 saw the publication of a new World Bank report: Risking your Healthwhich looks at the increase in risky behaviours, such as unhealthy eating, and how associated interventions to reduce these behaviours can improve overall welfare.

Additionally Kim announced in September that “we need to inject greater urgency into our collective efforts to save more women and children’s lives,” revealing that the Bank plans to invest $700 million by 2015 to help developing countries achieve the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 to reduce child mortality; and MDG 5 to improve maternal health.

Andy Guise, research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine commented: “This report is trampling on the dignity and needs of people everywhere, but especially the most vulnerable. Key evidence and theory is ignored, and a narrow economic view is the focus. Rather than risky behaviours, the Bank should be looking at the environments that create risk: the economies and societies that marginalise and limit opportunity and freedom for human development and dignity.”