‘Cost-effective’ TB investments included in high-level panel’s proposed post-2015 goals

31 May 2013 - New York - The report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda identified tuberculosis (TB) investments as highly cost-effective and proposed a specific sub-target on TB as part of a set of goals that could be used to guide development for the 15 years after 2015.

Presented yesterday to Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG), the report proposes that one of the specific goals under the overall objective of ensuring healthy lives could be to reduce the burden of disease from HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria, neglected tropical diseases and priority non-communicable diseases.

The High-level panel concluded that health investments are both affordable and available. Every dollar spent on TB generates up to US $30 through improved health and increased productivity - a greater return on investment than for any of the other diseases analyzed in the report.

The report also stresses the importance of building on the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and focusing on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. It includes a proposed development agenda based on what it calls five transformative shifts. These are to: leave no-one behind; put sustainable development at the core; transform economies for jobs and inclusive growth; build peace and effective, open and accountable institutions for all; and forge a new global partnership.

Following further consultations, the UNSG will submit his report on the post-2015 development agenda to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2013. A UNGA working group will then develop the final post-2015 development targets for adoption in September 2014.

Read the high-level panel’s report.