We are ten days into a series of meetings with interested partners. I see some of the same faces I saw last week – I wish you welcome again, and a special greeting to new participants that have joined us. I look forward to hearing your views and suggestions.

Last week I spoke to another round of MIPs, outlining a broader vision of our work and how I see the clusters fit in relation to that vision. My remarks of last week are available to you and I will not repeat what I said then. But let me spend just a few minutes to comment on the overall direction of WHO's work – at Headquarters, in the regions and in countries.

During these days you have met with different clusters and departments. Their formation, as well as their areas of work, are the results of 11 months of dialogue, evaluation and restructuring here at Headquarters. A broad direction has guided our formulation of programmatic priorities in this new structure.

We are now taking this one step further by defining a corporate strategy which will help different parts of the Organization pull in the same direction over the next 5-10 years. We want to see WHO become more than the sum of its parts with a clear view of what common goals we are here to realise as One WHO.

My main message to the World Health Assembly last month was that WHO has to give priority to addressing the legacy of the 20^th century: The more than a billion fellow human beings who have been left behind in the health revolution. Our prime mission in our quest for Health for All should be to help reach the billions who are poor and who do not have the access they need to fundamental health services.

When we in WHO plan our work for the next biennia we need to keep this overriding perspective in mind. The work of clusters, departments, regions and countries has to be geared in this direction.

This should be WHO's input to what we have been calling a new emphasis on health-led development. We believe that the development goal of halving the number of people living in absolute poverty by 2015 is attainable. But it will require new ways of working and changes in the way we use our resources.

How this increased focus on health led development can be achieved was the issue for discussion when I met with leading bilateral donors and Member States from the regions in London in May. The participants in London agreed on the need for increased focus on health investments as the cornerstone of poverty reduction, and for better coordination of how different key players give priority to health interventions.

In short, we need to secure that national health policies and budgets are geared at better addressing the health of the poor – even within existing severe resource restraints. We know, for example, that a limited set of conditions continue to affect the poor disproportionately. In poor countries only eight conditions – five of children and three of adults – still account for over one third of all healthy life lost. In some countries the percentage is even far higher.

This brings me directly to the areas of interest during this meeting of interested partners of the Communicable Diseases cluster.

If we are to make a difference for the prospects of poor people, we need to reduce greatly the burden of excess mortality and morbidity suffered by the poor. It will mean focusing more on interventions that we know can achieve the greatest health gain possible. It will mean giving renewed attention to diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, which disproportionately affect poor people – and which we now also recognize as major constraints to economic growth.

The fight against communicable diseases remains the backbone of WHO's work and identity. Although the world is in transition towards a larger threat from emerging non-communicable diseases, the infectious burden continues to take its heavy toll in the developing countries, especially among the poor.

You are familiar with our latest report on infectious diseases, "Removing obstacles to healthy development". The evidence that we present is disturbing and we hope it will be a wake-up call for the world community. The global health conscience should indeed be alarmed to hear that one out of every two people in low-income countries who die at an early age, are the victims of an infectious disease such as tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS. Or that the number of people maimed by diseases such as lymphatic filariasis, hepatitis B and C and meningitis is still so high.

Yet we know that most of the 13 million deaths a year from these diseases can be prevented. Interventions already exist either to prevent or cure many of the infectious diseases which disable and take a great toll on human lives. The report gives you specific examples of such interventions – and most of them figure in the work plans of this cluster.

However, where the world has solutions to offer, we often face impediments to their effective delivery. Inadequate health systems and social and economic barriers complicate the task of getting the job done.

With drug resistance, increased travel and increasing social complexity, we may only have a limited time in which to make rapid progress before new diseases emerge.

Bilateral and multilateral assistance have helped fund infectious disease initiatives. Still, resources available for such support are relatively small. Health, nutrition and population projects receive less than 5% of such support, which is a fifth of the amount provided to energy, transportation and communications projects.

As David Heymann showed you yesterday, infectious diseases are themselves a neglected concern within this neglected sector. In 1990, bilateral, multilateral, foundation and NGO partners provided just over US$800 million to help developing countries in their control efforts. This represents less than 2% of total donated funds. How might we help the development assistance community to increase this contribution? Please tell us.

We clearly still have much work to do. Our search for improved drugs, diagnostics and vaccines to prevent and control these diseases must go hand in hand with a search to advance our understanding of the behavioural and social determinants of health. Only by uncovering new knowledge in both the biomedical and social sciences will we be able to tackle the growing complexity of factors that keep people healthy or make them sick.

This was a main theme at the meeting of interested partners of the Social Change and Mental Health cluster two days ago – and I mention this to demonstrate the new important links between clusters and departments. Part of the mission of this cluster is to broaden the vision beyond biomedical aspects of disease to include the recognition that ill health and disability are inextricably linked to the social context of people's lives.

To take but one example: Recent studies indicate that 48% of the risk of chronic disease is due to lifestyle, and only 11% to the availability of medical care. Another important link that the world is discovering is the dangerous bridge from infectious diseases to non-communicable diseases.

This cluster is now relating more closely with other parts of the house. I know that some of you have commented on the link that has been made to nutrition and I fully agree. The leading risk factor of ill-health remains malnutrition. And the poor are often caught in the worst of traps, suffering from both malnutrition and intense exposure to infectious diseases. Separately, the effect of each is huge. Together, their impact is far greater than the sum of their parts.

Both are conditions of poverty. They arise from poverty and they keep people in poverty; not just for one generation, but for many generations.

Let me end with a few observations on the structure of this cluster and our working together with our many partners.

We call the structure that we have presented to you a functional one. We believe we get more synergies out of this way of working – seeking a balance between what is frequently called vertical and horizontal approaches.

In many ways this is a false debate – simply because the one is little good without the other. I believe this cluster has very strong vertical features – aimed at delivering first class advice and assistance to countries as they address daunting challenges from diseases such as malaria or TB. At the same time – and partly because we believe we have good support to give – we should see to it that what we do also benefits the health sector more widely.

In the past I believe that the disease specific programmes missed an opportunity by not learning enough from each other and by not maximising their efforts together. This is now changing.

There are two special features: Roll Back Malaria and Stop TB. On malaria, I felt that there was an urgent need to draw world attention to the rising threats from this disease, especially in Africa. I also felt that WHO needed to revamp its own efforts in malaria control. And I am very pleased with the ground that Roll Back Malaria has covered during 11 months. I believe we have here a number of very valuable lessons to learn for many parts of WHO's work.

On TB, the situation was slightly different. WHO had done extensive and important work on TB, and it had for some years already been addressed as a global issue of major concern. We are therefore taking forward the Stop TB initiative to build on what we have done successfully in the past and reaching out to old and new partners to take our joint efforts further.

David Heymann has presented to you malaria and TB as priorities in the CDS cluster. They figure prominently on the list of the few main killers, especially of the poor and disadvantaged. Both diseases will receive our full attention in the months and years ahead – focusing on first class interventions and a clear focus on health sector development as we move forward.

I brought Stop TB and Roll Back Malaria to the attention of G8 leaders before they met last week. In the summit conclusions, the leaders committed to continue to support the endeavours of the World Health Organization and its initiatives "Roll Back Malaria" and "Stop TB" and they called on governments to adopt these recommended strategies. It is now essential that this support is translated into its financial implications.

A final word on partnerships. During my 11 months at WHO I have been calling for renewed partnerships to help advance the role of health in development. The partnerships we are talking about are not legal entities with formal proceedings – they are a bringing together of key players who pull together with a unity of purpose. We may have different constituencies. WHO for its part relates to its more than 190 Member States and its governing bodies, looking for ways in which we can do better in fulfilling our mandate.

I have called for a change in our working relationship with the other players, many of which are around this table: our Member States, the other UN agencies, the private sector, the NGO community and the world of research.

I have done so for several reasons. The most obvious one is that we can achieve more by working closer together, in particular when it comes to making a difference where it matters most, in countries where people live. We all have different outreach and different comparative advantages and together we should do what it takes maximise our common efforts.

Dispersed agencies send dispersed messages – even though the sense of the messages may be the same. We need more concerted analysis – more joint definition of the key challenges to human development – and more jointly defined strategies to implement our programmes and policies.

This is a learning process for all, also for WHO, but I am determined that it is the right way to go – both when we support the activities of others – or when we have a leadership role ourselves as is the case for Roll Back Malaria and Stop TB. Leadership cannot be taken for granted – it must be earned and we will work hard to merit this role. These initiatives are both priorities for WHO. They have received a lot of my attention this last year and they will continue to do so in the four years to come.

I appreciate the interest you are showing by coming to Geneva and I want you to know how much we value your participation and advice.