Making It: Industry for Development (#10)

In terms of international development, it is often taken for granted that wealth inevitably leads to health, and that therefore only the countries with wealthier economies will be able to foster the conditions for a healthier population. In this context, international development efforts usually focus on interventions to kick-start economic growth, on the assumption that economic success will help eradicate sickness and disease. But what if the paradigm is flipped, and healthy populations become a building block for healthy economies? As well as The Wealth of Nations – the title of Adam Smith’s ‘free market bible’ – should we perhaps also be talking about the ‘health of nations’?