Professor Dale Fisher,
Dr Gail Carson,
Members of the Steering Committee, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning, it’s a great pleasure to welcome you today, and especially to see you face-to-face.
GOARN’s support to countries has been critical during this unprecedented global health emergency.
My sincere thanks also to the staff from WHO, and our partners in the global incident management teams for emergencies and outbreaks.
The last I spoke to you, I talked about the complexity of the global architecture for pandemic preparedness and response.
At the World Health Assembly just three weeks ago, WHO presented a proposal for strengthening that architecture, based on 10 key recommendations. The White Paper outlining this proposal has been shared with you.
Our recommendations aim to strengthen the governance, systems and tools, and financing needed for health emergency preparedness and response, and WHO’s central role.
I look forward to your feedback on the entire proposal, but there are three recommendations that are particularly relevant to GOARN’s work:
First, strengthening health emergency alert and response teams that are trained, interoperable, and rapidly deployable;
Second, coordinating the strategy, planning, financing, operations and monitoring of health emergency preparedness and response;
And third, expanding partnerships and networks for collaborative surveillance, community protection, clinical care, and access to countermeasures.
I know that you have also been working on a strategic plan and priorities for the development and operations of GOARN, and I’m pleased to see a close alignment between your analysis and the recommendations in the WHO White Paper.
The challenge now is to turn these recommendations into action that saves lives, improves health, is more equitable, and more sustainable.
GOARN embodies the type of international collaboration that is needed to respond rapidly and effectively to outbreaks. But we know it can be even better.
So I ask you this week to focus on how we can strengthen GOARN to deliver more effective support nationally, regionally, and globally.
We look to your advice in three specific areas:
First, how to address the gaps in GOARN’s existing work, particularly in financing partners to train and deploy rapid response teams;
Second, how GOARN can scale up its existing model;
And third, what specific measures WHO can take to better support the work of GOARN.
Thank you for your continued commitment to GOARN, and to a safer world.
As the Steering Committee, you have taken on a much more active role in recent years.
The coming months and years will require even more engagement.
The world needs a strong GOARN steering committee, for a safer world.
Finally, I would like to say a special thank you to Dale Fisher and Gail Carson for their longstanding commitment to GOARN, and their leadership as Chair and Vice Chair of the Steering Committee over the past four years.
Thank you both for the energy and dedication you have given to this role. I look forward to working with your successors, and I hope that they will bring the same level of commitment and professionalism. They have a hard act to follow.
My special thanks also to Dale for being part of my advisory group in the early days of the pandemic.
Thank you all once again, and I wish you a very productive meeting.