It is a great pleasure to be here in São Paulo today.

Over the past few hours, I have seen a city on the move. You may think I am referring to the traffic, but I am not. I am talking about people.

At São Mateus Hospital, in São Caetano, in Santo Andre, in Guaruja, I have seen thousands of people moving.

Moving for health.

Showing us that physical activity does not only mean doing sports. It means bringing your body with you when you want to have fun, and when you want to meet people, or to get somewhere. In short, it means dancing, walking, doing simple exercises - together, or alone, as you prepare for a long day of challenges for the brain.

Over the past century, machines have taken over much of the hard physical work humans were forced to do to survive. Machines have freed billions of people of a hard daily toil. Men and women all around the world can stretch their backs and put down their loads. This is a good thing. But poverty still forces far too many people to work far too much for their own health and well-being. Our work to reduce the poverty that causes such hardships for millions must continue.

As we let our cars or buses take us to work and watch our machines do the heavy lifting, we are in danger of sliding too far into inactivity. For men and women who have just escaped years of back-breaking work, this is often hard to grasp. Our bodies don't give the same immediate danger signals to inactivity as they do when we work them too hard. But the dangers to health are in fact greater.

This is why noncommunicable diseases are shooting up in many developing countries which face rapid urbanization and industrialization. Obesity, with its many negative health consequences, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and cancers are advancing as infectious diseases are receding. In many of the poorest countries, they even overlap, so that these countries face a double burden. This double burden is overwhelming health systems which were designed to treat episodes of malaria or diarrhoea, but which are not able to cope with the large load of noncommunicable diseases and chronic conditions.

Let us imagine that a pharmaceutical company developed a pill that could prevent heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and reduce the risks of cancers, osteoporosis, hypertension and depression. It would be a sure winner. People would pay dearly to get it. Of course, it would only be available to the wealthy.

Yet, we have such a remedy already. It is free. It works for rich and poor, for men and women, for the young and the old. It is physical activity. Thirty minutes each day.

I can hear many say: "Physical activity? That's sports. That's only for boys and girls. I can't start playing football or running? People would laugh." Or they say: "Physical activity? That's doing exercises. Now, that is too boring. I don't have the time."

This is where Victor Matsudo and his many colleagues in the "Agita São Paulo movement" have been doing such a fantastic job. They have convinced thousands of workers and their bosses, thousands of housewives as well as public officials that physical activity is not only about doing sports or putting on a gym suit and jumping up and down in front of the mirror.

It is about walking the children to school or taking a stroll in the park. It is about walking the stairs instead of taking the elevator, or getting off the bus two stops early. It is about taking an evening walk, or dancing when you hear a nice tune on the radio. It is about having a small carnival for yourself, every day.

Friends,

Today we are at the start of a weekend to celebrate health. I have come here to Brazil because, as everybody knows, Brazilians are better than anyone at celebrations.

But I have also come here to pay tribute to the Agita movement, and the many officials, union leaders and private sector executives who understand its enormous importance. The Agita movement has made people understand that the best long-term strategy to avoid the cost and suffering of disease and ill health lies in prevention.

But the Agita movement is special also for another reason. It does not only tell individuals to get up off the couch and move. Its name implies much more. It agitates for health. It argues that physical activity must be given higher priority by health professionals, teachers and town planners.

It encourages new partners to work together: but the Agita movement also understands the important links between physical activity and healthy living. As Johan Koss, Norwegian four-times Olympic Gold medal winner in speed skating and the head of Olympic Aid told me, there is no better way of instilling healthy behaviour patterns in young people than getting them together in a sports team. Parents, teachers or health officials may not get far trying to convince a group of 15-year olds about the dangers of tobacco, of unsafe sex, of drugs or of violence. But they will listen to a coach they admire.

Or like Dr Branquinho, the director of São Mateus Hospital here in São Paulo has understood: physical activity can tie a fragmented community together. In the rough streets surrounding São Mateus Hospital, violence is a problem. Dr Branquinho has taken a Chinese tradition of group exercises beyond the hospital where she began to practice them with her staff. She has brought it out in the community. She sees that it creates a sense of belonging and solidarity that can help reduce violence, both within the homes and in the streets.

Seventeen years ago the World Commission on Environment and Development held its meeting in São Paulo. Ten years ago, I attended the UN Conference of Environment and Development in Rio. It was a ground-breaking event. Its main success was perhaps to place people at the centre of the development process. More than anything, that means making sure that the environment we live in allow us to stay healthy.

For too many years, investments in health were seen by many economists as an add-on which developing countries could only afford after having reached a higher income level. I was convinced this was wrong: you need a two-pillar approach. A healthy population is a pre-requisite for growth as much as a result of it.

In 1999, I asked leading economists and health experts from around the world, to come together and consider the links between health and economic development. There was a need to question old dogmas. Four months ago, this Commission on Macroeconomics and Health delivered its Report, based on two years' work by several hundred leading scientists. It concludes, quite simply, that disease is a drain on development, and that investments in health can be a concrete input into economic development.

But investment in health means more than more doctors, more health clinics and better access to medicines. It means creating opportunities for people to take care of their own health. It means to free public spaces of tobacco smoke or protect people from tobacco advertising. It means reducing pollution in the streets and indoors. It means clean water.

It also means planning cities so that physical activity becomes possible. It means playgrounds and safe parks near every neighbourhood. It means sidewalks and bicycle lanes along the streets. It means encouraging physical activity at schools and in the work place and allocating time for it. It means promoting health and physical activity for all.

It all starts with a few steps.

São Paulo is showing the way. Brazil is showing the way.

Let us move the world for health!

Agita Mundo!

Thank you.