Excellencies, my sister Ilona, dear colleagues and friends,
If we have learned anything this past year, it is that none of us can go it alone. We can only thrive when we work together, across institutions and across borders.
That is why it is truly a pleasure to join you for the launch of the Guide to Global Health Diplomacy. Preparing for the future means learning from the past.
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vital importance of global solidarity to confront shared public health threats. It also shows why we need strengthened multilateralism and top-quality diplomacy.
Conversely, the pandemic has also shown that when suspicion and recriminations replace solidarity and diplomacy, the virus can gain a foothold and people suffer.
Health is a political choice that can and must transcend geopolitics.
It is one area where nations can work together across ideological divides to find common solutions to common problems.
That is why this book and the work of the Graduate Institute are so important to build the health diplomacy capacity of both diplomats and health experts.
Modern health diplomacy actually started in 1839, when the Sultan of Constantinople declared a quarantine throughout the Ottoman empire to combat the plague.
When European powers disagreed with these measures being applied to their ships, health diplomacy negotiations were needed.
This led to the creation of the Superior Health Council of Constantinople, and four years later the Egyptian quarantine board in Alexandria.
These are the precursors of WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Office.
Perhaps the most outstanding example of health diplomacy was when the Soviet Union and the USA worked together at the height of the Cold War to eradicate smallpox, which had killed an estimated 300 million people during the 20st century.
When we work in solidarity in a multilateral approach, we can achieve miracles.
In 2015, the world came together to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on finance for development, which I had the honour to chair.
It was a moment of great convergence; the nations of the world uniting for a common purpose, and a common future.
Since then, the creeping tides of misguided nationalism and isolationism have eroded that sense of common purpose.
Geopolitical tensions have sometimes overshadowed health diplomatic efforts to stand together.
Short-term thinking is the undoing of international cooperation. An approach that considers enlightened self-interest allows for long-term planning and coherent international efforts.
We need to reimagine leadership, built on mutual trust and mutual accountability – to end the pandemic and address the fundamental inequalities that lie at the root of so many of the world’s problems.
Solidarity and equity will keep us all safer.
The Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator is health diplomacy in action – an unprecedented collaboration between countries, international agencies, the private sector and other partners to ensure vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics are shared equitably, as global public goods.
Vaccine equity is a litmus test for solidarity and global health diplomacy. Every life that is lost now is all the more tragic as vaccines are beginning to be rolled out.
Alongside traditional public health measures, how quickly we can collectively expand vaccine manufacturing and roll out vaccines to all countries will determine how soon we control the pandemic.
Going forward, we have to put in place a strengthened multilateral system to be better prepared for the next challenges, from climate change to another pandemic.
In my work in the UN family, at summits such as the G20, G7 or with groupings like the African Union, BRICS, the European Union or ASEAN, and in my daily interactions with political, economic and societal leaders, I can see that there has never been a greater need for accomplished health diplomacy.
For all those reasons, I am grateful for this guide, which I hope will be a valuable and practical tool for health diplomats to be both professional and effective in their work.
Thank you once again, my sister Ilona, and congratulations.