Your Excellency Dato Dr Mohammad Isham Jaffar, Minister of Health of Brunei Darussalam and Chair of the Regional Committee,
Honourable ministers and heads of delegation,
My sister Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning, it’s an honour to be with you.
Allow me to start by thanking the Philippines for hosting our regional office and all the support provided.
As you know, this is a particularly important moment for the region, as Member States prepare to elect a new Regional Director.
Whatever the outcome of tomorrow’s election, I am pleased to note that the Region will have either its first female Regional Director, or its first Regional Director from the Pacific.
I look forward to working closely with whomever you choose.
I thank Australia for suggesting the candidate’s forum and outgoing Chairperson Honourable Bounfeng Phoummalaysith of Lao for his leadership in starting it along with other Member States for supporting the idea.
Earlier this month the Eastern Mediterranean followed suit at its election, and the South-East Asia Region will do the same next week.
The Secretariat intends to submit a proposal to the Executive Board to revise the guidance for elections of Regional Directors based on this experience, which brings transparency to the election process.
I know the past year has been very difficult one for the region, especially for staff here in the Regional Office.
So I would like to be on record expressing my deep gratitude to all staff in the Regional and Country offices for your dedication, professionalism and continued commitment to serving the people of the region, despite these difficult and uncertain times.
I would especially like to thank my sister Zsuzsanna, who must have thought her days as a Regional Director were behind her.
But she has stepped willingly into a very difficult role at a very difficult time, and I know how much Member States, and the staff of the Regional and Country offices appreciate her.
I have been practising my Hungarian.
So Zsuzsanna, koszonom [kosonom].
Excellencies, colleagues, please stand and join me in expressing your thanks to Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab.
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Excellencies, distinguished delegates,
Last month’s United Nations General Assembly in New York was a historic one for health, with three High-level meetings on health issues.
Member States approved strong political declarations on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, universal health coverage and tuberculosis.
All three are relevant to the work of this region. And all three depend on a strong WHO, and a strong region of the Western Pacific.
Over the past six years, WHO has undergone the most significant transformation in its history, grounded in a bold new strategy, the 13th General Programme of Work.
As you know, we are now working with Member States to develop the 14th General Programme of Work for 2025 to 2028.
In my address to the Regional Committee last year, I outlined five priorities – the “Five Ps” – which are now becoming the basis of GPW14: to promote, provide, protect, power and perform for health.
A few words on each.
The first priority is to promote health and prevent disease by addressing its root causes, in the air people breathe, the products they consume, and the conditions in which they live and work.
This is especially important for the prevention of noncommunicable diseases, which account for almost 90% of deaths in the region.
Action to reduce tobacco use, improve diets and increase physical activity must be key priorities for all Member States.
As must be action to reduce emissions to address climate change, which is a threat to all nations, but especially to our friends in the Pacific.
I am very much looking forward to COP28 in the United Arab Emirates in December, which for the first time will include a day dedicated to heath.
I encourage all Member States to participate actively.
Empowering people to make healthy choices depends on them having reliable information, so I welcome the Regional Action Framework on Communication for Health, which you will consider this week.
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The second priority is to provide health, by radically reorienting health systems towards primary health care, as the foundation of universal health coverage.
The most recent edition of the Global Monitoring Report on UHC, published just a few weeks ago, shows that the Western Pacific enjoys one of the highest rates of service coverage in the world, although of course there are significant differences between Member States.
As a result, you have made significant progress against several indicators, including reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, and against communicable diseases.
I congratulate you for the significant declines in malaria cases and deaths you have achieved, especially in the Mekong.
It’s also pleasing to note that Western Pacific enjoys the highest antiretroviral treatment coverage for HIV of any region.
I also congratulate Lao PDR for being verified for the elimination of lymphatic filariasis.
However, while service coverage and health outcomes are improving, the latest UHC data also show that across the region, catastrophic health spending has increased alarmingly, exposing many individuals and families to financial hardship as a result of having to pay for care out of their own pockets.
So I urge all Member States to focus on financial protection for your populations.
The backbone of a strong health system is a strong health workforce, so I welcome the Regional Framework to shape a health workforce for the future of the Western Pacific, which you will consider this week.
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The third priority is to protect health, by preparing countries to mitigate health risks, and to rapidly detect and respond to both acute and protracted health emergencies.
Just last week I was in Cairo the Regional Committee meeting of the Eastern Mediterranean.
That region bears a heavy burden of health emergencies, including the conflict in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory which erupted just over a week ago.
We can all be grateful that this region does not suffer to the same extent from violent conflict, but as the Regional Director’s report notes, there are many other emergencies to which you have responded in the past year, including earthquakes, cyclones, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and food safety incidents.
I welcome the Asia Pacific Health Security Action Framework, which you will consider this week.
Meanwhile, regionally and globally, the same vulnerabilities that COVID-19 exposed persist.
During the pandemic, all countries built new capacities to prevent and control epidemics and pandemics. I urge all Member States to sustain those gains and not slip back into the cycle of panic and neglect.
The investments you have made must not go to waste. And nor must the painful lessons we have learned.
That is why WHO has developed a plan for a more equitable, inclusive and coherent global architecture for health emergency preparedness and response, with equity at its core.
The new pandemic accord, and amendments to the International Health Regulations, will provide the vital legal foundations for this architecture.
However, I am concerned that negotiations are moving too slowly, and that the accord may not be agreed in time for next year’s World Health Assembly.
I urge all Member States to work with a sense of urgency, with a particular focus on resolving the most difficult and contentious issues.
This is a unique opportunity that we must not miss to put in place a comprehensive accord that addresses all of the lessons learned during the pandemic, with a particular emphasis on equity.
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Promoting, providing and protecting health are proposed as the three key priorities for all Member States in the 14th General Programme of Work.
The other two Ps – powering and performing for health – are enablers of the first three.
Powering health means harnessing the power of science, research and development, data and digital technologies.
The Regional Health Innovation Strategy for the Western Pacific, which is on your agenda this week, is important for fostering new solutions to health challenges.
At the global level, WHO has recently launched the Global Initiative on Digital Health at the G20 Health Ministers’ Meeting in India.
The Global Initiative will support Member States by converging and convening global standards, best practices and resources for digital health transformation, rooted in people-centred, evidence-based solutions.
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And the final P, performing for health, is about the work we are doing as the Secretariat to support you better.
In particular, one of my key focuses for the remainder of my second term is to strengthen our country offices, with a core country presence, delegation of authority, adequate financial and human resources, the implementation of global mobility, enhanced internal communications, and more.
To support these efforts, I have squeezed 100 million US dollars from our budget to allocate to country offices.
Our Programme Budget for the next biennium is also the first in which country offices will be allocated more than half of the total budget for the biennium.
We have already increased funding flows to regions and countries, and the more flexible funding we receive, the more we can increase that amount.
Our work to strengthen country offices will benefit greatly from the 20% increase in assessed contributions, and by the proposal for an Investment Round, both of which you approved at this year’s World Health Assembly.
We are also continuing our efforts to strengthen our workforce, to achieve gender equity at all levels, and to make zero tolerance for all forms of sexual misconduct a reality, and not merely a slogan.
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Excellencies,
Thank you all once again for your continued commitment to promoting, providing, protecting, powering and performing for health in the Western Pacific.
I wish you all a very productive and successful regional conference.
I thank you.