The Economic Gaze : The World Bank s Influence on Global Public Health. (360G-Wellcome-106635_Z_14_Z)

The World Bank is the largest financial contributor to health related projects and arguably the most important institution in international health cooperation. Symbolically, the World Bank is the arbiter of development norms and meanings combining intellectual prestige and financial power. The 40th anniversary of the Bank's first loan for health provides a timely moment to examine two broad sets of questions of relevance not only to international institutions but also to global public health. Fi rst, what has the Bank contributed to global health over the past 40 years in terms of finance, ideas and networks, and how effective has this contribution been? Second, how has the Bank's increasing involvement as an economic institution transformed how we think about and develop policies to address health? I shall address these two questions through a close examination of five periods in the Bank's history between 1946 and 2014. The project will rely on primary sources from the Bank, includ ing interviews with former and current Bank officials and other knowledgeable stakeholders, archival research at the Bank, WHO and Rockefeller Foundation and relevant secondary sources. The PI is not aware of any other project that has examined the World Bank's contribution to global public health thus filling a major gap in the field. The main proposed output is a monograph with Cambridge University Press. The President of the World Bank (Jim Kim) and head of Global Health (Tim Evans) have agre ed to provide official access to Bank archives and staff.