The objective of this Health Strategy (GN-2321) is to help Latin American and the Caribbean countries improve the health of their populations, attaining national health objectives and tailoring Millennium Development Goals to conditions in each country. The priorities areas of Bank Actions include: 1) Supporting the establishment and scope of strategic national health objectives adapted to the conditions in each country that seek to satisfy the needs of the very poor and to promote inclusion and social equity, with a focus on objectives linked to the needs of low income and socially excluded groups (indigenous peoples and communities not ethnically or culturally integrated); 2) Strengthening the institutional capacity of health systems in order to raise their efficiency and achieve strategic health objectives; 3) Improving the effectiveness of the services system through primary health care strategies, human resources training, public goods delivery, and information on participative processes; and 4) Promoting public health initiatives and the intersector approach to health problems by stepping up efforts to broaden the coverage of public health programs such as health, epidemiological, and environmental surveillance, health promotion, and the prevention of risk factors associated with transmissible and chronic nontransmissible diseases.
