January 02, 2026
In an op-ed for Hindustan Times, OHT’s Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan revisits a key insight from the World Development Report 1993 (WDR 1993): health is not merely a result of development, it is a prerequisite for it.
For decades, the prevailing belief held that economic growth would automatically improve health and that sickness was simply a consequence of poverty. WDR 1993 challenged this assumption, presenting strong evidence that some of the highest-return investments governments can make are in vaccines, clean water, sanitation, nutrition, and maternal care, rather than solely in infrastructure or industry.
Such investments keep people healthy, productive, and out of poverty. Without them, GDP growth is fragile and unequal.
Dr. Laxminarayan highlights that, even thirty years later, this lesson remains poorly understood in India.
Read the article here.
