Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Thank you for the opportunity to address you today.
And thank you for your support so far for this historic resolution on universal health coverage.
I wish to thank the chair, Ms Gerkens, and the three rapporteurs, Professor Millat, Mr Lohr and Ms Carvalho, for their leadership.
We very much appreciate the hard work you have done, and the consensus you have reached.
The journey to this point started with a meeting between myself and Martin Chunggong last year, in which we agreed to work together to harness the power of parliaments to promote health.
In October last year I met Professor Millat, who helped to take this agenda forward. His leadership has been exceptional.
A key milestone was the signing of a memorandum of understanding between our two organizations, in which we agreed to work on three specific issues: universal health coverage; health security; and promoting health, especially for vulnerable groups, including women, children and adolescents.
And so we come to Belgrade, where we have the final negotiations and adoption of the resolution.
We are delighted that this committee has led the work on the resolution.
As it reminds us, both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution of the World Health Organization affirm that health is a human right to be enjoyed by all people, not a privilege for the few.
Health is an end in itself. And yet it is also a means to achieving many of the other Sustainable Development Goals.
It helps to reduce poverty, enables people to learn and earn, and is a driver of inclusive economic growth.
It’s also a vital investment in a more secure world. A weak health system is fertile ground for epidemics, which can result in major loss of life and significant disruption to health systems, economies and societies. Health systems and health security are two sides of the same coin.
The initial draft of the resolution was already excellent, but the contribution of this committee has made it even stronger.
We especially appreciate the input from the Forum of Women Parliamentarians. Equity is at the heart of universal health coverage, and we welcome the emphasis in the resolution on gender equality, including key issues that affect women’s health such as sexual and reproductive health.
Health for all means health for all – poor and rich, rural and urban, with and without disabilities, citizen and refugee. Everyone, everywhere.
This resolution comes at a very important moment.
At the United Nations General Assembly last month, all 193 UN Member States endorsed the political declaration on universal health coverage – the most comprehensive international health agreement in history.
This resolution is vital for translating that political commitment into concrete realities in your countries.
The most critical investment countries can make to realize the vision of this resolution is in primary health care.
Too many countries spend too much of their health budgets on managing diseases, instead of preventing them.
With ageing populations and the increasing burden of noncommunicable diseases, no country can afford simply to treat the people who turn up in its hospitals.
We need to shift our focus to promoting health and preventing disease.
And to do that, we must focus on addressing the many determinants of health that lie outside the remit of the health sector – in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink and the conditions in which we work and live.
This takes coordinated action across every sector, including agriculture, commerce, energy, environment, housing, finance, trade, transport and more.
This is what the resolution affirms.
We note that the resolution calls on WHO to provide countries with coordinated, multifaceted support aimed at achieving UHC.
I can assure you we are committed to providing that support. In fact, that is the essence of what we do every day.
To maximize our impact, we have recently joined forces with 11 other multilateral health agencies through the Global Action Plan on Healthy Lives and Well-Being for All.
Together, our commitment is to leverage our combined strength in support of country priorities to accelerate progress towards the health targets in the Sustainable Development Goals.
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Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Thank you once again for all your support so far. Thank you for sharing our vision for a world in which all people enjoy the highest attainable standard of health.
We look forward to working with parliaments in all countries to make this resolution a reality in the lives of your people.
I thank you.