This work focuses on supporting countries to mobilize funds to support preparedness, prioritize high-value activities to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from health emergencies, and maximize the preparedness value of health systems capacities.

The WHO strategic framework for emergency preparedness defines preparedness as “…the knowledge and capacities and organizational systems developed by governments, response and recovery organizations, communities and individuals to effectively anticipate, respond to, and recover from the impacts of likely, imminent, emerging, or current emergencies”. Part of effectively and sustainably managing such emergencies involves choosing how to allocate resources and to prioritize preparedness activities.

Analysis informing such choices has been growing, particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, into a subspeciality of analysis which could be labelled preparedness economics - the study of how economic aspects of government policies, private markets and other factors influence emergency preparedness within countries and across continents. These analyses include knowledge generated about the costs and impacts of activities contributing to preparedness.