Lieutenant General Sir George Norton,
Distinguished guests,
Good morning, it’s an honour to welcome you all to Geneva, and to WHO.
We very much value your interest in understanding the role of multilateral organizations in our modern world, and particularly the role of WHO.
WHO’s global profile has increased substantially in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That has proved to be something of a mixed blessing: it has elevated issues of public health in public and political discourse.
But it has also resulted in mis- and disinformation about what WHO is, how we work, what we do and what powers we have.
So I hope your visit today will give you a deeper understanding of who we are and what we do.
Last year marked the 75th anniversary of WHO’s founding, when our Constitution entered into force on the 7th of April, 1948.
Like the rest of the United Nations, WHO was born in the aftermath of the Second World War, and the realization that the only alternative to global conflict was global cooperation.
In its preamble, the WHO Constitution says that the health of all peoples is a fundamental human right, without distinction.
But it goes further, by saying health is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent on the fullest co-operation of individuals and States.
The authors of our Constitution recognised the intimate link between health and peace; a link that remains more relevant than ever.
Indeed, war and disease are old friends.
It’s no coincidence that in both the Napoleonic wars and the American Civil War, more soldiers died from disease than in battle.
It was no coincidence that the 1918 influenza pandemic – the greatest pandemic – erupted during what was then the greatest war the world had known – the First World War.
It’s no coincidence that in 2018, the Ebola outbreak in the relatively stable Equateur province of DRC took two months to control, while the outbreak in the insecure regions of North Kivu and Ituri took two years.
It’s no coincidence that the final frontier for eradicating polio is in the most insecure regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And it’s no coincidence that today, the people of Gaza who have survived the bombardment face the increasing threat of disease due to the collapse of Gaza’s health system and the destruction of essential infrastructure.
In recent years we have also seen a disturbing new trend in conflicts around the world: the intentional targeting of health workers and health facilities in conflict.
Last year, WHO verified more than 1400 attacks on health care in 19 countries and territories, killing 741 health workers and patients, and leaving a further 1210 injured.
Attacks on health are a violation of international humanitarian law.
There can be no health without peace. But equally, there can be no peace without health.
Just as disease often follows insecurity, so insecurity often follows disease.
In the 14th Century, the Black Death led to the mass persecution of Jews;
While outbreaks of cholera, smallpox and plague in the 19th Century, and Ebola in our time, have led to riots, violent scapegoating and attacks against health and government officials.
But perhaps the most vivid demonstration is the COVID-19 pandemic, which demonstrated that when health is at risk, everything is at risk.
More than 7 million people lost their lives to COVID-19, and they’re just the reported deaths. We know the true number is much higher.
But the impacts of the pandemic went far beyond the death and disease caused by the virus itself.
The pandemic caused great social upheaval, eroding trust between people, governments and institutions, fuelled by a torrent of mis- and disinformation.
It caused economic upheaval, as millions of people lost their livelihoods, were pushed into poverty, and the global economy was plunged into its sharpest downturn since the Great Depression.
And the pandemic also caused great political upheaval, both within and between nations.
Vaccines, masks, “lockdowns” and other public health measures were heavily politicised;
And you are well aware of the ways in which the pandemic has exacerbated geopolitical tensions globally.
The key issue now is whether we will learn the mistakes the pandemic has taught us, so that we don’t repeat them in future.
For decades, the global response to epidemics and pandemics has operated on a cycle of panic and neglect.
The world throws money at an outbreak, and when it’s over, we forget about it and do nothing to prevent the next one.
We cannot allow the same thing to happen next time. In your sector you would not dismantle the defence efforts when a war is over.
And there will be a next time. The next pandemic is a matter of when, not if.
It may be caused by an influenza virus, or a new coronavirus, or it may be caused by a new pathogen we don’t even know about yet.
In response to the many reviews and recommendations we received in the wake of the pandemic, WHO has developed a new framework for the global architecture for health emergency preparedness and response.
This includes key actions for stronger governance, stronger financing, stronger systems and tools, and a stronger WHO.
Already, some of the parts of this framework are being constructed.
A new Pandemic Fund was established at the World Bank, to provide funding for lower-income countries to strengthen health security;
We established the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin, which is now working with almost 250 institutions around the world to detect signals of new outbreaks at the earliest possible opportunity;
To increase regional production of vaccines, we have established the mRNA Technology Transfer Hub in South Africa and a Global Training Hub for Biomanufacturing in the Republic of Korea;
To strengthen international sharing of biological samples and sequences, we established the WHO BioHub in Switzerland;
And we’re also working on a new mechanism for more equitable access to medical countermeasures including vaccines, tests and treatments.
There are several other initiatives, including the Global Health Emergency Corps, the Universal Health and Preparedness Review, which is a peer review mechanism, the International Pathogen Surveillance Network, and the Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats Initiative.
But there is still one key missing ingredient.
One of the biggest deficiencies of the COVID-19 pandemic was the lack of global coordination and cooperation between countries.
It was, in many ways, an every-country-for-itself response.
At exactly the moment when the world needed to come together to face this common threat as one, the pandemic was marked by a chaotic patchwork of responses.
While sovereign governments have the responsibility to protect their people, a global threat demands a coordinated global response, in which countries work together to keep themselves and each other safe.
So that is why all 194 WHO Member States are now negotiating a legally-binding agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, to provide the basis for international cooperation that was so sadly lacking during this pandemic.
We can only face shared threats with a shared response, based on a shared commitment to solidarity and equity.
That is what the pandemic accord is all about: a generational agreement between nations to work in cooperation – not in competition – to prepare for and respond to epidemics and pandemics.
And that’s exactly what the countries of the world did in response to numerous global threats since the end of the Second World War.
This new accord would be an instrument of international law, similar to the many other accords and treaties that nations have agreed – the Geneva Conventions; the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; the UN Charter; the Paris Agreement on climate change; the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and, of course, the WHO Constitution itself.
All are binding agreements in international law to meet common threats with a common response.
So surely it makes sense for countries to agree on a common response to the common threat of pandemics – a risk that is increasing every day with environmental degradation, climate change, and the ever-present risks of zoonotic spillover.
75 years since the founding of WHO, the need for international cooperation is more important than ever.
Multilateralism isn’t always easy. In fact, it’s never easy. It’s often slow, involves painstaking negotiation and compromise.
But it’s worth it, because as the saying goes, if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.
Thank you once again for your interest. I hope your visit is enriching and rewarding.