The twittosphere is atweet with news of the World Bank's new $100 million project. Here is a backgrounder to let us see what they are thinking. I agree with the Bank that improving health will reduce poverty. But it is madness to think that scaling up existing programmes in Myanmar will be fast and easy.

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/12/15/ending-poverty-and-boosting-shared-prosperity-in-myanmar

The following quotes about fast and easy are from the report that can downloaded from the above webpage. Read them and laugh.

"Increasing access to basic quality health would have a high impact on poverty reduction and some key actions can be scaled up relatively quickly. Basic health has strong complementarities and linkages with basic education, sanitation, and agriculture productivity. Further, the opportunity cost of ill health in a household is very high in terms of lost opportunities."

"Therefore, in light of the high deficiency gap compared to other countries, action on improving access to health would have a high impact on poverty reduction. In addition, the impact on poverty reduction can be realized relatively quickly, with key additional areas of action relatively easier to implement - they mainly entail increasing budgetary allocation to health and scaling up existing programs such as provision of free essential drugs at primary health care facilities and township hospitals, and provision of free health care services for children under 5, pregnant mothers, and free hospital admission on the first day for patients needing emergency surgery."

Jamie