Excellencies,
Good morning, and thank you for the invitation to brief you today.
The World Health Assembly is always the most important event on the global health calendar, but this year’s Assembly is especially significant.
As usual, the Assembly has a heavy agenda, with 63 items.
This include 26 resolutions and decisions on social participation for universal health coverage; mental health during conflict and other emergencies; maternal and child health; antimicrobial resistance; climate change and health; the economics of health for all, and more.
In addition, Member States will be considering several issues that could impact the health of every person on the planet for decades to come.
The first is the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the amendments to the International Health Regulations, which Member States have been negotiating for more than two years.
Most or all of you were at the discussion on the Pandemic Agreement that we held at WHO earlier this week – and I would like to thank you for your attendance and your constructive participation.
I won’t repeat the remarks I made on Tuesday, and I don’t need to tell you how significant the Agreement is.
We heard loud and clear from EU Member States, and from all Member States, that you are committed to concluding both the Pandemic Agreement and the IHR Amendments before the Health Assembly starts.
Thank you for that commitment, and for the hard work your delegations have already done.
I know that like all Member States, you have already made many compromises. If we are to reach consensus by the end of next week, all Member States will need to compromise further.
I appreciated what Ambassador Jérôme said, that we must get this done for reasons of global health security, but also as a sign that in our troubled times, multilateralism still works.
We cannot allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good.
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The second major issue on the agenda is the 14th General Programme of Work – or GPW14 – the global health strategy that will guide our shared work – as Member States and Secretariat, together with our partners – from 2025 to 2028.
GPW14 is anchored in our founding vision and constitutional mandate: the right to health for all people, without distinction.
In pursuit of that vision, GPW14 is based on three priorities that form our overarching mission: to promote, provide and protect health and well-being for everyone, everywhere.
GPW14 is built on the lessons we learned from GPW13, and from the COVID-19 pandemic.
It also reflects and is enabled by the deep and ongoing transformation of WHO, which has fundamentally changed this organization and – most importantly and significantly – focused the entire WHO on achieving a measurable impact a country level.
Underpinning our overarching mission for the next for years are six strategic objectives that are shaped by our rapidly changing world: climate change, determinants of health; primary health care and universal health coverage; and health emergency preparedness and response.
GPW14 has been developed in close consultation with Member States. It builds on the strong foundation established under the previous GPW, and sets a course for getting the world back on track for the health related targets in the Sustainable Development Goals.
This has been one of the most extensive exercises ever carried out to support the development of a WHO General Programme of Work.
But in order to implement this ambitious strategy, WHO needs to be predictably and sustainability financed, which brings me to the third major issue to be considered at the Health Assembly: the first WHO Investment Round.
As you all know, WHO is financed in a fragmented and unpredictable way.
This makes it hard to plan our long-term work and to provide job security.
Many departments spend time negotiating relatively small grants and working on reports to donors.
Transforming the way WHO is financed has been a priority of mine since I was elected almost seven years ago.
Based on our assessment of the problems, we identified four solutions, three of which we have already initiated:
First, expanding our donor base, which we have done by mobilizing new voluntary contributions from Member States who had only made assessed contributions before;
Second, tapping into the private sector, which we have started to do through the WHO Foundation;
And third, increasing assessed contributions, which Member States have agreed to do – to 50% of the base budget by 2030.
This increase, which started this year, is enabling us to allocate 200 million US dollars to country offices, creating 450 new positions.
Now we are initiating the fourth solution: the Investment Round, which the Executive Board approved in January.
The Investment Round is designed to ensure that voluntary contributions - which are currently the majority of our funding – will be more predictable, flexible, and sustainable.
We will launch our Investment Round on 26 May, the eve of the WHA.
Our new investment case helps to explain why investing in WHO is essential for progress in global health.
It sets out how, during the four-year period of GPW14 through 2024, we will contribute to saving 40 million lives.
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Excellencies, thank you all for your continued support for WHO, and for global health.
We seek your support for ensuring this year’s Health Assembly is successful, especially in delivering the Pandemic Agreement, the IHR amendments, the GPW14, the Investment Round, and the many other programmatic resolutions that Member States will consider.
We encourage you, as we encourage all Member States, to support a consensus approach to all resolutions and decisions.
Your leadership and partnership in the months and years ahead is critical as we work together to promote, provide and protect the health of the world’s people.
I look forward to your questions, comments and our discussion.