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Dear friends,
At the Polio Partners Summit at the United Nations
in New York in September of last year, we identified three main
challenges for the Polio Eradication Initiative:
The funding gap is the single biggest challenge
facing this Initiative.
The continued and extraordinary support of Rotary
International will be key to overcoming this challenge. Many thanks to
Dr Bob Scott and his team of National Advocacy Advisors for their work
in advocating for resources from the public sector. In the past
several months, Rotarians have encouraged the Governments of the
United States, Japan, Canada, Ireland and Australia to pledge new
support. I understand that Norway, too, is now about to make a
contribution.
And Rotary’s more recent foray into private
sector fundraising is setting the stage for new donors to join this
historic Initiative. A new campaign, especially one as innovative and
ambitious as this one, takes time to get up and running. WHO is
confident that the under the leadership of Mr Herb Pigman,
your fundraising targets will be met.
Fundraising from the private sector is not easy
work. Companies and private foundations are besieged with requests for
their hard-earned money, and most of them are worthy. For most
corporate leaders, polio is far away from their everyday experience.
But over the past two years we have seen an
important shift in the way business is looking at global health
issues. I believe it is an effect of the widening scope of
globalization.
Globalization is about much more than trade. It is
about communicating with an infinite variety of new people, of
relating to them - and therefore also getting involved in their lives
and their problems.
Health is central among these problems. The
separation between domestic and international health problems is
losing its usefulness as people and goods travel across continents.
This is an accelerating trend, and is not likely to be reversed.
What is emerging today is a notion of "human
security". The levels of ill-health in countries constituting a
majority of the world’s population pose a direct threat to their own
national economic and political viability, and therefore to the global
economic and political interests of all other countries. Territorial
dispute is no longer the prime source of conflict. It is increasingly
rooted in general misery, aftermath of humanitarian crises, shortage
of food and water and the spreading of poverty and ill-health.
The private sector, as well as many governments are
waking up to this reality. The company which sets up a production
plant in Indonesia or Peru may do so based on an evaluation of
economic opportunities, but it will soon find itself having to relate
to the political, social and economic reality of the country it has
chosen to invest in. Ask Daimler-Chrysler, which estimates that as
much as 20% of its work force in South Africa may be infected by HIV.
Mining companies have come together to devise
community health programmes in countries where they work. Oil
companies have become important players in preventing malaria. Private
Foundations, such as those founded by Gates, Turner, Rockefeller and
Soros have contributed more than a billion dollars to health issues.
The diamond trader de Beers, have of course contributed to polio
eradication in Angola. Just last week, Coca Cola offered to use its
distribution network to spread condoms and information about HIV/AIDS.
The week before, the world's fifth largest bank, Credit Suisse,
pledged US$ 1 million to the proposed Global AIDS and Health Fund.
In short, global health issues are becoming much
more central in the thinking of major companies. Not out of charity
but from coolheaded enlightened self interest. Polio is central to
this line of thinking. Eradicating polio makes economic sense for
local communities, countries and the global community.
But eradicating polio also eliminates one of the
most potent and vivid causes of human suffering. Eradicating polio is
worthy of support because it is succeeding - it is a tangible sign of
real benefits reaching people in great need.
I am here this afternoon to thank each of you for
your inspired work in mobilizing the resources we need to get the job
done and to assure you of my personal commitment, and the commitment
of my Organization, to support you in this task.
Last year, before the official launch of the
private sector campaign, I had the opportunity to participate in a
fundraising breakfast organized by Rotary in New Delhi. And I am
hoping to be able to take part in the briefing that is being scheduled
in Chicago in September.
My Special Adviser on polio eradication, Dr Daniel
Tarantola in March joined Campaign Chair André Lannoy at two
private sector briefings he organized: one in Paris and one in Monaco.
These small contributions pale in comparison to the
work you have each pledged to carry out. I thank you for your efforts.
I encourage you to continue your good work, and to call on polio staff
at WHO to support you. Finally, I encourage you to look forward, to
the legacy that you are poised to provide, the legacy of a world
without polio.
Thank you. |
