Economics of Development
Economics of Development
ISSN 1683-1942 e-ISSN 2304-6155 UDC 33
DOI: 10.63341/econ
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Current issues in global health economics: Financing, equity, and resilience (literature review)

Yurii Petrashyk*

yurii.m.petrashyk@tdmu.edu.ua

Received 20.05.2026, Revised 05.08.2026, Accepted 01.09.2026 Published 02.10.2026

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to synthesise and critically evaluate current directions in global health financing, identify the principal points of tension between efficiency and equity, and assess how the financing agenda has been reshaped by climate change and pandemic risk. The study was based on a narrative synthesis of 42 scientific sources published mainly between 2010 and 2026, comprising policy reports, systematic reviews, and empirical studies indexed in major bibliographic databases, complemented by a smaller cluster of Ukrainian-authored literature on financing reform, informal payments, and system efficiency. The literature analysis showed that roughly 4.5 billion people still lack full access to essential health services, that efficiency-oriented reforms can widen socioeconomic inequalities in privately dominated systems, and that pandemic-preparedness funding is both underfinanced and geographically concentrated, with the African region receiving about 70% of total preparedness funding despite bearing a disproportionate share of the corresponding risk. Innovative financing instruments introduced between 2002 and 2015 mobilised approximately USD 8.9 billion, a modest share of overall development assistance for health, directed mainly toward vaccines and infectious-disease programmes rather than system strengthening. Climate finance was increasingly treated as a health-financing instrument rather than a purely environmental one, while low- and lower-middle-income countries would need to allocate roughly 37% and 9% of total health spending to meet global pandemic-preparedness targets under current financing patterns. The Ukrainian literature revealed a variant of these same problems: informal payments, underfinancing relative to GDP, and a post-reform financing model still being tested for its ability to combine competition among providers with equitable access. The review concluded that the central challenge for global health economics is no longer how much money is spent on health but how financing architecture, institutional capacity, and governance arrangements are matched to the setting in which they operate


Keywords:

universal health coverage; health financing; equity-efficiency trade-off; pandemic preparedness financing; climate finance; health system resilience

https://doi.org/10.63341/econ/3.2026.72

Retrieved from Volume 25, No. 3, 2026

Pages 72-81

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Suggested citation

Petrashyk, Yu. (2026). Current issues in global health economics: Financing, equity, and resilience (literature review). Economics of Development, 25(3), 72-81. https://doi.org/10.63341/econ/3.2026.72