Your Excellencies,
Dear colleagues,
You have an important discussion ahead of you. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals remains the ultimate goal of this decade. However, while the world faces the great challenge of economic recovery, it is still under threat — with the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the climate crisis, food shortages and rising inflation.
Public health and social measures in response to the pandemic such as lockdowns had huge impact on livelihoods and the economy at large. Both supply and demand for health services were compromised and this has led to major setbacks in universal health coverage.
Although we still do not have full data, WHO surveys on continuity of essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic, gave us reports of widespread disruptions.
Over 90% of countries reported disruptions to essential health services. And half of them reported disruptions to essential primary health care services, including routine immunization services.
The most vulnerable and marginalized populations, the elderly, disabled people and those living with long term illness were most affected. This further widened inequalities and hampered progress towards UHC.
You are all aware of the huge equity gap in accessing not only COVID-19 vaccines, but also diagnostics and treatment in countries of all income groups. Health workforce and supply chain issues represent the biggest barriers to access to COVID-19 tools.
The impact of COVID-19 on UHC is profound. The impact on other SDGs is also inevitable given COVID-19’s impact on every aspect of society and human development.
Your Excellencies,
Dear colleagues,
While COVID-19 is a huge setback, there is now a heightened political and economic impetus focusing on health from national to global levels. We need to capitalise from this window.
At the national level, there is a need to sustain and increase allocations for health. This is for COVID-19 response as well as to address the backlog of disrupted services. The good practices in social protection and economic incentives can support orderly economic recovery by protecting health and wellbeing. These include the removing barriers to access, provision of subsidies and cash transfers for vulnerable population.
Many countries are behind their adequate allocation for health spending. We should also encourage participation of private sectors in health systems strengthening. We also need to work together and encourage countries to align and integrate investments to build health systems resilience and make progress towards UHC and health security as interdependent objectives.
From WHO, we are making a major push to ensure that all countries put funding and access to health services on a sustainable footing. For example, the G20 Finance and Health Ministers are working towards establishing a Financial Intermediary Fund for better pandemic preparedness and response, and in which WHO will have a central coordinating role.
And the Director-General, Dr Tedros, established the independent Council on the Economics of Health for All to explore and recommend means of changing the way that national and global economies measure growth and finance what is needed to deliver health for all.
Your Excellencies,
Dear colleagues,
WHO is working on multiple fronts from national to global levels. This includes WHO’s global programme of work 13 extended with renewed attention to achieve its triple billions objectives and health systems recovery.
By utilising the experience from COVID-19, WHO’s vision is to enable integrated approaches to health systems resilience for universal health coverage and health security, based on a foundation of primary health care, with essential public health functions and focus on equity.
The proposed Pandemic Preparedness Treaty can promote better transparency, accountability and cooperation between member states and partners in effectively managing future public health emergencies.
The Access to COVID-19 Tools-Accelerator is tackling inequalities present in vaccine coverage as well as addressing critical health systems gaps. Joint ACT-A missions to scale up immunization coverage are taking place in 34 countries with very low vaccination rates like Ethiopia, DRC or Syria.
To support countries’ in recovering from the ongoing pandemic, WHO outlined policy recommendations and calls to:
- First, invest in health systems resilience with a focus on Primary Health Care and the Essential Public Health Functions, with intensified support to the most fragile countries;
- Second, implement the International Health Regulations by applying all hazards emergency risk management;
- And third, ensure community engagement and whole-of- society involvement in inclusive governance processes.
Above all, the pandemic has taught us that health is not a cost to be contained, but an investment to be nurtured. In other words, health should not be seen as a luxury, but as the foundation of social, economic and political stability.
Thank you.