NGIC Co-Chair Vaira Vike-Freiberga, former President of Latvia,
Excellencies Presidents and Prime Ministers,
My friend Secretary-General Rovshan Muradov,
Excellencies,
Distinguished guests, dear colleagues and friends,
I thank the Nazami Ganjavi International Center for bringing us together once again.
At the opening of the General Debate yesterday, the President of the 80th session of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock, asked us to consider what the world would be like without the United Nations.
Neither WHO, nor the UN to which we belong, are perfect.
But there is no alternative. And without these institutions, the world would be a far more dangerous, unequal, and fragmented place.
Consider what would be missing without the WHO:
In a world in which viruses don’t respect borders, who would monitor outbreaks and coordinate the global response?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccine inequity that we witnessed would have been much worse without the COVAX partnership of which WHO was part.
Millions more lives would have been lost not just to the virus, but to chaos and inequality.
In addition, smallpox would still be with us.
Polio would still be paralyzing hundreds of thousands of children every year.
Millions of children would have lost their lives to vaccine-preventable diseases.
And beyond emergencies, who would speak for the billions who live without access to essential health services?
Who would track air pollution, or make the case that climate action is also a health imperative?
Of course, WHO does not do any of this work alone. In every area, we work with a wide range of partners.
But it’s hard to imagine a world without WHO playing its leading and coordinating role in the global health architecture.
None of this work happens by accident. It happens because the world, through the WHO and the UN, has chosen cooperation over isolation.
Yes, we face criticism, some of it fair, some of it not. Bureaucracy, inefficiency, lack of agility – these are real challenges.
But the solution is not to undermine or weaken multilateralism; the solution is to strengthen it.
We must strengthen the institutions that hold the global system together, not abandon them at the moment we need them most.
For WHO, reform is a constant. When I became Director-General more than eight years ago, we designed and delivered the most significant set of reforms in the Organization’s history.
That includes reforms to WHO’s financing, that have helped to mitigate the impact of the funding cuts we have faced this year.
Multilateralism is not a luxury – it’s a necessity.
WHO, and the UN, were formed in the aftermath of the Second World War, in the recognition that the only alternative to global conflict was global cooperation.
The Constitution of the WHO became the first instrument of international law to affirm that health is a fundamental human right.
But it went further, saying that health is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security.
That conviction remains as relevant today as it was 77 years ago.
In these divided and divisive times, health is one of the few areas in which countries who are otherwise political and economic rivals can work together to build a common approach to common threats.
Exhibit A is the Pandemic Agreement, which WHO Member States adopted at the World Health Assembly in May this year.
After three-and-a-half years of negotiation, the nations of the world showed that it is still possible for countries to work together, and to find common ground for a common purpose.
The adoption of the Pandemic Agreement was truly historic. It showed that multilateralism is alive and well.
WHO, like the UN, is a platform where every country – large and small, rich and poor – has a voice. It is where we make health not a privilege, but a right.
So, let us not forget what we have achieved together. Let us not allow frustration to blind us to progress. And let us recommit to the idea that by standing together, we can overcome challenges no nation can face alone.
I thank you.