A healthy population is both a cause and a result of economic growth and development. But achieving both today requires finance ministers to leave their comfort zones.
We should know. As former finance ministers, we believe that macroeconomic policies now require far greater engagement with line ministries. In particular, ministers need to be better able to assess the potential economic effects of public-health risks, introduce taxes that improve health outcomes and adopt budgetary and regulatory decisions that look beyond short-term public-finance considerations. Failure to do so will mean being unprepared for the next health and economic crisis.
The devastating economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have shown why ministers must anticipate their responses to global health risks. The pandemic is forecast to kill more than 15 million people and cost the global economy more than US$12 trillion (439 trillion baht) in forgone GDP by 2024. Lockdowns that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago have resulted in more than 1.5 billion students being affected by school closures, implying severe long-term consequences for a generation of young people.
