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Julio,
Hilde,
Jeffrey,
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
How do we make sure that financing for development
brings useful benefits to the people who need them most?
How can we ensure that resources lead to real
improvements in the lives of the poorest two billion?
My view on these issues is clear. Development is
not possible unless people are healthy.
Investing in people is crucial. It will yield
enormous benefits and allow millions of people to move out of poverty.
Better health will bring real improvements to their lives.
In 1999, I asked leading economists and health
experts from around the world to analyze the links between health and
economic development.
Last December, in London, Clare Short and Bono
joined me when Jeff Sachs presented the Report of the Commission on
Macroeconomics and Health. It shows how disease is a drain on
economies and how investment in health spurs economic growth.
Improving people's health could be the single most important
determinant of economic growth in Africa.
The Commission's proposal would mean the saving of
eight million lives a year with a six-fold economic return on
resources invested.
This week we ask ourselves: how do we increase -
and improve - investments in development, making them even more
effective? How can the private sector engage more strongly in
promoting development and reducing poverty?
We know what needs to be done.
Three diseases - HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria
- bring a heavy burden. Maternal and child conditions, and good
nutrition, are also global health priorities. As we concluded in
Stockholm last week, the survival and destiny of children is crucial
to our future.
Any serious attempt to reduce the disease burden
faced by the world's poorest people must concentrate on these
conditions.
Any serious attempt to stimulate global economic
and social development and promote human security must address this
burden.
These are key goals set out in the Millennium
Declaration.
The Commission's Report is the first detailed
costing of the resources needed to achieve them.
We know how to do it.
We have comprehensive global strategies for health
with concrete goals and specific time frames.
The proposed investments are cost-effective. Their
impact can be measured - in terms of reducing disease burdens and
improving health. Our emphasis is on results: on investing where it
makes a difference.
We seek the engagement of a range of partners at
local and national levels, with civil society, private entities,
researchers and the media joining public sector actors. We encourage
them to pursue common strategies: building on best practice while
harnessing innovations for the future.
We have seen the formation of national and
international alliances that increase access to vital vaccines and
medicines - for HIV care, leprosy, rolling back malaria, stopping TB,
tackling sleeping sickness, controlling diabetes, reducing tobacco use
and combating childhood infections.
At the global level, new systems for scaling up
national efforts are emerging. Funding mechanisms like the Global Fund
to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and
Immunization support such action.
We encourage donors to work jointly with national
level partners - through Sector Wide Approaches and Poverty Reduction
Strategies. We are all learning from experience.
WHO will focus on making sure that funds are well
spent.
We are strengthening our capacity to provide
countries with the technical assistance they need for this extra
effort. It will include delivery of vaccines, maternal and child
health services, care for people living with HIV and control measures
for malaria and TB.
I believe that National Commissions on
Macroeconomics and Health can help countries formulate long-term
programmes for scaling up health action. This will be a part of their
Poverty Reduction Strategies. Several countries have already decided
to set up their own Commissions.
Each Commission could assemble an epidemiological
baseline, quantify operational targets and establish a medium term
financing plan.
This leads me to my next point. We will measure the
developments and validate them so that the world community knows that
we achieve results.
WHO already works with countries to measure health
trends and health outcomes. We have a global surveillance system for
infectious diseases, as well as the world health survey and other
burden of disease studies. These provide a solid foundation for
measuring progress and tracking the use made of new investments. And
we will measure health system performance.
Often, new tools are necessary.
That is why we have developed public-private
alliances such as the Medicines for Malaria Venture and the Global TB
Drug Development Facility, which have joined the International AIDS
Vaccine Initiative, the Tropical Disease Research Programme, Human
Reproduction Research and many vaccine research programmes. These
alliances stimulate the development of medicines, vaccines and
diagnostics for the diseases that most affect poor people.
It is now more likely that the new tools will get
to the people who need them. At the WTO negotiations in Doha, last
year, we saw further progress in the movement for poor countries to
access priority medicines and commodities - within the context of
international trade agreements.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Countries have brought high hopes to Monterrey.
Trade is certainly an engine of growth, but it is given momentum by
women and men who are healthy and educated. Some donors have brought
the promise of more attention to people's needs and of more financing
for development. Let us make sure that it will be taken into good use.
The World Health Organization is ready to help it happen.
Thank you.
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