Following our 2025 statement on private healthcare concerns, in May 2026, the World Bank Group completed a comprehensive review of IFC's private health services portfolio, covering all active direct investments in health service providers — including hospitals, outpatient clinics, diagnostics providers, and integrated care platforms — across the regions where World Bank Group operates. As of May 2026, IFC's health portfolio stood at $3.7 billion, of which $1 billion is in health services (hospitals, diagnostics, integrated healthcare providers).
The review used an updated quality and ethical risk questionnaire, assessed market and regulatory conditions; examined client governance and quality assurance systems; and included onsite visits by World Bank Group Knowledge Bank industry experts. Findings are being incorporated into annual supervision plans, advisory support, and monitoring systems.
Key Findings
- Governance structures and quality management systems are broadly in place across reviewed clients, and all reviewed entities have core structures in place to manage ethical risk.
- Investments in Africa and parts of East and South Asia face the highest risks, driven primarily by financial protection challenges and weak regulatory systems.
- Some of the facilities would benefit from stronger technical support in quality assurance and business ethics. Such services are now being offered.
- The review also identified opportunities to strengthen governance and ethics awareness, quality management processes, data and record systems, and affordability and patient-care protocols.
Follow-up Actions
In response to the findings of the portfolio review, the World Bank Group is taking the following concrete steps:
- Portfolio Supervision: Conduct annual risk assessments for all health service clients, with engagement tailored to risk ratings; increase the frequency of in-person site visits and virtual engagements; and embed in standard portfolio reviews ongoing monitoring of ethics, quality, data security, and patient rights.
- Strengthening Client Capacity: Expand IFC advisory support targeting quality assurance, accreditation readiness, data protection, cybersecurity, and ethical oversight; develop training resources for IFC teams and clients.
- Ongoing Monitoring: Conduct continuous market and client-level risk monitoring including automated news and regulatory tracking; strengthen collaboration with regulators and sector partners; and enhance World Bank Group resources to support regulatory capacity building.
- Scaled awareness-building and knowledge sharing across the industry: Leveraging the EPIHC, the Quality Advisory, and other knowledge platforms to expand World Bank Group 's advocacy, awareness, and training for private-sector participants beyond IFC's investments (investors and providers) on patient safety and rights issues.
- A consolidated World Bank Group approach to addressing market failures: Under the Knowledge Bank, the World Bank Group will increase its efforts to support financial protection for health to address issues related to affordability and equity of access, particularly in markets where the private sector plays a significant role in the delivery of essential services. World Bank Group 's Knowledge Bank is also setting up a new team to focus on Policy and Regulation for mixed health systems to help governments better leverage, regulate and monitor the private sector's contribution to a stronger health system.
Last updated: July 2026