Your Excellency Peter Eriksson,
Excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
God eftermiddag!
It’s such a pleasure to be in Stockholm for the first WHO Partners Forum.
I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to the government of Sweden for hosting this historic event, and to my brother Anders Nordstrom for his hard work.
In fact, I can think of no better place to hold this meeting than the beautiful city of Stockholm.
Sweden is a leader in global health.
It’s home to important global health institutions like the Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation, the Karolinska Institute, Lund University and the Nobel Prize, to name a few.
But Sweden is also an old friend of WHO. And a great friend.
Sweden is WHO’s leading supporter in terms of flexible voluntary contributions.
In 2014, WHO and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency signed a 6-year framework agreement to increase flexible contributions worth 30 million U.S. dollars.
With these flexible funds, WHO can allocate resources when and where they are needed – in times of disease outbreaks or crisis and for areas of work that are sometimes underfunded.
To give you an example, flexible funding from Sweden supported WHO’s emergency operations and programmes for reproductive health in the Central African Republic.
Of course, Sweden is not the only partner to support WHO with flexible funds.
Australia, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and others have all supported WHO with flexible contributions. We thank them all.
We hope many more of our partners will follow their lead.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
As you saw in the video, WHO has much to be proud of, from the eradication of smallpox to our improved response to the Ebola crisis today.
Together, we have made enormous progress in improving health over the past 70 years.
Life expectancy has increased dramatically;
We have reduced maternal mortality by almost half, and child mortality by more than half;
We’ve turned the tide on the HIV epidemic, and malaria deaths have halved.
We have helped to make new vaccines for meningitis and Ebola available for those who need them most.
We are introducing global standards for air and water quality.
And there is now unprecedented political momentum for universal health coverage.
Just yesterday I was in Morocco, which has expanded health coverage since 2011 after it promulgated health for all as a human right.
But we still have a long way to go.
We cannot rest on past achievements. We must shape the future. Health is constantly changing, and so must WHO.
Half the world’s population still lacks access to essential health services.
Every year, 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty by out-of-pocket health spending.
Powerful industries continue to profit from products that harm health and cause death and disease.
Climate change is magnifying inequalities and making the planet on which we depend a less hospitable place to live.
None of these challenges can be addressed without partnership.
Partnership is essential; partnership based on collaboration and trust, between governments, the UN, global health funds, civil society, the private sector, scientists, researchers – everyone.
The Global Action Plan on Healthy Lives and Well-Being for All is a vital platform for partnership.
World leaders have asked WHO to play a coordinating role in working with 11 other global health agencies to develop a roadmap for achieving the health-related targets in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
We are now developing that plan together with other partners including the Global Fund, Gavi, UNICEF, Unitaid, UN Women, UNAIDS, the World Bank, UNDP, UNFPA, the World Food Programme, the Global Financing Facility and others.
I’m delighted that Peter Sands and Seth Berkeley have joined us here in Stockholm. Much of the progress we have made in the past 20 years is thanks to your organizations.
I am convinced that we can achieve even more if we work together more closely to leverage our collective strength.
WHO is also a strong supporter of both the Global Fund’s replenishment this year and Gavi’s replenishment next year.
We need to be clear that WHO is not in competition with anyone else for funds. We’re in competition with disease. We’re in competition with inequality.
Investments in the Global Fund and Gavi are investments in global health. The 12 agencies will work together to ensure the success of the investments.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
Partnership for results is the foundation of WHO’s new 5-year strategic plan, the General Programme of Work, which is designed to support countries to get on track and stay on track for the health-related targets in the SDGs.
At its heart are the “triple billion” targets with which you are all familiar:
1 billion more people benefiting from universal health coverage;
1 billion more people better protected from health emergencies;
And 1 billion more people enjoying better health and well-being.
This is based on the SDGs that we have all pledged and agreed to achieve by 2030. We cannot reach any of these targets with a business-as-usual approach.
We must change the way WHO works.
That’s why we have just announced a major transformation initiative, to change the way WHO operates and ensure we deliver an impact where it matters most – in the lives of the people we serve.
Transforming WHO must include transforming the way WHO is financed, to ensure our long-term success and sustainability.
Our new resource mobilization strategy lays out our vision for how WHO will be financed in future, and how we plan to realize that vision.
The first piece of the strategy is the first WHO Investment Case, which we launched last year.
The Investment Case estimates that achieving the “triple billion” targets could save 30 million lives and add up to 100 million years of healthy living to the world’s population over the next 5 years.
But the benefits go beyond health. We also estimate that reaching these targets could add an additional 2 to 4 percent of economic growth in low and middle-income countries by 2023.
To achieve the “triple billion” targets, WHO will need about $14.1 billion over the next five years.
Let me put that in context for you. Global cigarette sales in 2017 were 700 billion U.S. dollars. That’s a very staggering number. That’s what people spend every year on health-destroying products. It’s like paying to die.
That’s 250 times more than WHO needs to protect and promote the most precious commodity on earth – human health.
The investment case is just one part of our new resource mobilization strategy. So is this forum.
We are also establishing the WHO Foundation and looking at innovative financing mechanisms to generate resources from previously untapped sources.
These changes are not just about the quantity of funding for WHO. They’re about the quality of funding – they’re about making sure WHO can truly fulfil its mission and mandate.
This forum is about starting the conversation on how to ensure WHO has the high-quality funding it needs for the priorities Member States have set.
Of course, flexible voluntary contributions are ideal because they give us maximum control over how to allocate resources.
Currently, more than 70 percent of WHO’s budget is earmarked for specific programmes, which aren’t always aligned with corporate priorities. We have 3000 grants to manage. You can imagine that this is very difficult to manage and that’s why some of our partners complain that we are not reporting on time.
That means we effectively have control over less than 30 percent of our budget, which makes it hard to match funds with the priorities set by our Member States.
That reinforces silos and internal competition for funds, and creates a mismatch between funds and priorities that ultimately makes it more difficult to work as one WHO, and more difficult to deliver results in countries.
We understand that some countries face legal and political barriers in moving to completely flexible funds.
The most important thing is that we match funds to priorities. Where earmarking continues, we are eager to have a dialogue with partners about how to make sure earmarked funds are aligned with the “triple billion” targets.
We also understand that greater transparency, accountability and value for money are vital for Member States and for all our donors. They’re vital for us too.
We are committed to transparency, and we are committed to results.
Flexible funding enables us to deliver those results across the board.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
I am a firm believer in aiming high.
If our ambitions are modest, so will be our achievements.
But if we expect the unachievable, we may achieve the unexpected.
WHO was not established 71 years ago to make marginal improvements in global health.
Our vision must rise to meet the level of health threats we face: poverty, inequality, climate change, and more.
That is the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals. And that is the spirit of the “triple billion” targets that were drawn up based on the SDGs.
They are deliberately ambitious.
We are all here because we share a vision.
This meeting is not a financing dialogue. Nor is it a pledging event.
There are two specific things we’re looking for this week.
First, we want your honest feedback on how WHO can be a better partner.
This is an opportunity to talk informally and candidly about how we can work together more effectively to achieve our common vision.
And second, we want to have a conversation about how to make sure WHO has the resources it needs to do the job the world wants us to do.
To achieve the “triple billion” targets and the SDGs, we must make sure we have the right resources in the right places.
We look forward to working with all of you to make that happen.
This first Partners Forum will help us forge a new way forward in how we work together to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable.
Because investing in WHO is not about investing in an organization. It’s about investing in a healthier, safer, fairer world.
I thank you.