Distinguished Chair Feng Yong,
Esteemed Members of the PBAC, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning, and a very happy New Year to all of you.
2023 was another year of achievements and challenges for our Organization, as we celebrated our 75th anniversary.
It was also a year tinged with sadness, as we lost our dear sister Dr Carissa Etienne, the former Regional Director for the Americas.
Dr Etienne was a greatly loved, respected and admired member of the WHO family, and her untimely passing leaves a hole in our hearts, and in global health.
And just two months ago, we lost our colleague Dima Alhaj, who worked as a patient administrator at the Limb Reconstruction Centre in Gaza.
Dima was killed alongside her husband, their six-month-old son, her two brothers and dozens of extended family when the house they were sheltering in was bombed.
2024 promises to be another very important year for our WHO, with the pandemic agreement, amendments to the International Health Regulations, the 14th General Programme of Work and the first Investment Round – and that’s just for starters.
It’s a pleasure to welcome you once again to PBAC – a PBAC with a difference.
Member States have made clear that they want more time for more in-depth discussion on the most important issues.
So for the first time, this PBAC is four days instead of three, with this first day dedicated to deep-dive discussions on the 14th General Programme of Work and the Investment Round.
Another innovation is that for the first time we will have a facilitator for those deep-dive discussions, Björn Kummel of Germany, who is well known to all of you.
I thank Member States for their engagement with the development of the 14th General Programme of Work over the past six months.
GPW14 builds on GPW13, and there is much continuity between them.
It incorporates lessons learned from the GPW13 evaluation, as well as the realities of our ever-changing world.
It proposes a broad and inclusive strategy for global health, to get the health-related targets in the SDGs back on track and build more resilient health systems.
The three core priorities of GPW13 – healthier populations, UHC and emergency preparedness and response – are reflected in the first three of the “Five Ps” which form the overarching goal of GPW14 – to promote, provide and protect health and wellbeing for all people, everywhere.
This goal is underpinned by six strategic objectives and 15 outcomes for Member States, with the support of the Secretariat and our partners.
These strategic objectives and outcomes are supported by the fourth and fifth Ps, powering and performing for health.
Powering health refers to the core work of the Secretariat, in leadership and partnership; normative and technical work; and through country support and technical cooperation.
Finally, performing for health means building a stronger, more effective and more efficient WHO, building on the changes we have already made through the transformation over the past six and a half years.
Your recommendations to the Executive Board on the draft GPW14 will be vital as we work to finalize it in time for the World Health Assembly.
As you may recall, the IEOAC has said that one of the main drivers of inefficiency in WHO is the way the Organization is financed.
Transforming WHO therefore means transforming the way WHO is financed.
You are all familiar with the historic imbalance between assessed and voluntary contributions, the distortions this creates, and the issues we face with insufficiently predictable and flexible financing, which make it difficult to attract and retain world class experts, and create “pockets of poverty” in our work.
We have already made significant changes, and I would particularly like to acknowledge Björn Kummel for his leadership of the Member State Working Group on Sustainable Financing.
The working group made several key recommendations, including to gradually increase assessed contributions to 50% of the base budget, which the World Health Assembly approved in 2022, which was a historic milestone in the history of WHO. Thank you so much to our Member States for this bold decision.
One of the other key recommendations of the working group was the proposal for an investment round.
I thank all Member States for their constructive engagement on the investment round to date. Your support has been consistent.
Together with the approved and planned increases in assessed contributions, the objective of the investment round is to fund the 14th General Programme of Work, to increase the predictability and flexibility of funding, and to eliminate the pockets of poverty that have been so problematic in the past.
I very much look forward to our discussion today and at the Executive Board next week.
A green light from the EB to move forward will be another important step in this Member State-led journey towards a sustainably financed and stronger WHO.
Pending that approval, we seek the leadership of Member States in making this first investment round a success by reaching the estimated funding gap of US$7 billion for the GPW14 base budget.
It’s important to underline that this amount includes existing pledges and contributions. We hope to use the Investment Round to attract new donors, and to continue working with Member States to make new contributions more flexible.
We well understand that in return for more predictable and flexible funding, Member States expect improvements in efficiency, effectiveness, and ultimately, in the results we deliver – that’s accountability.
I want the same thing. We all want the same thing, and we remain committed to the Secretariat Implementation Plan on Reform and the recommendations of the Agile Member States Task Group – the recommendations you have made.
One of the major areas for change under our transformation was to overhaul our administrative and management processes by developing fit-for-purpose processes and tools.
To this end, work on our new enterprise resource management system, BMS, continues.
BMS is bringing together best-in-market solutions for the key business areas of programme management, human resources, finance, supply chain, travel and meetings and events.
But even more important than improved processes, building a stronger WHO means building a stronger WHO workforce – our greatest asset.
We have undertaken many important initiatives in this area.
We are continuing to support career pathways and career development, through training and mentoring, which will ultimately transition to the WHO Academy, which will be our single entry point for training needs across the organization.
One of the greatest challenges our workforce faces is the lack of secure, long-term contracts due to the lack of sustainable financing.
In July last year, the Contractual Modalities Task Force delivered its final report, with recommendations for improvements in workforce planning, recruitment, career development, and performance management.
We are now implementing a new system of contracting which will address some of the chronic problems affecting our staff and our performance.
Combined with the increase in assessed contributions, this will address some of the problems we have been facing.
And we continue to take steps to support staff to take care of their mental health.
You know, especially during the pandemic, under what stress colleagues have been working everywhere.
We have increased resources for staff counselling, with additional counselling support at the regional and country office levels in response to emergencies.
The Staff Health Insurance Rules have also been amended to ensure a prescription is no longer required to access psychotherapy.
I’m also pleased to note that we continue to make progress towards gender parity in our workforce.
In March last year, we launched the new WHO Gender Parity Policy for 2023 to 2026.
The new policy establishes new targets for each professional level, regular reporting on the compact for executive managers to strengthen accountability, includes higher reliance on disaggregated data for gender, and an implementation plan for the next two years.
Taking all staff contract types into consideration, we have achieved overall gender parity, with 50% women and 50% men.
In addition, we continue to maintain gender parity for longer-term appointments, with 50.3% women and 49.7% men.
The proportion of women at the P4 and P5 levels, and as heads of WHO country offices, has continued to increase over time, and that will be the focus of our attention.
Our shortlist for the 2023 selection process for the roster for heads of country offices is at gender parity, with approximately 50% female candidates.
We have also made significant progress on the implementation of WHO’s Global Geographic Mobility Policy.
The updated policy was issued in 2023, and the initial phase of mobility was implemented on a voluntary basis, although mobility will be mandatory as we go forward.
The final placement recommendations from the 2023 process have been approved, and are now being implemented.
171 eligible staff applied for positions in the compendium, and 122 placement reports were issued, with 59 recommendations for placements and 63 with no placement recommended.
The number of mobility placements from the 2023 process already greatly exceeds previous mobility exercises, and is more than half of the total number of moves between duty stations in the first half of last year.
And finally, we have continued our work to make zero tolerance for any form of sexual misconduct a reality.
In my report to the Executive Board, I have outlined that progress, and highlighted some of the challenges that remain.
Last year we implemented a comprehensive policy framework with a victim-centred outlook, as well as a new Code of Ethics and an accountability framework.
We continued to support victims and survivors identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Together with UN partners and civil society we agreed on the need to reform the UN approach to support survivors.
We have completed a comprehensive package of support to all survivors including medical, psychosocial, legal and income generation services for the full year as per UN standards.
But we are going beyond, working with NGOs to continue more targeted support based on survivors needs.
We have also introduced measures across our sexual misconduct incident management system to support survivors.
The Office of Independent Oversight Services, IOS, has implemented key performance indicators that are monitored rigorously to ensure cases are moving forward.
All our country offices have been required to assess sexual misconduct risk and implement mitigation measures.
The annual UN survey of 42,000 personnel from 42 entities shows that we are making progress.
WHO has scored above average in several key areas including taking seriously the zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse; awareness raising; reporting; and a clear idea of prohibited behaviours.
In the UN-wide survey on sexual harassment, WHO scored well in 8 out of 10 areas, including a speak-up culture, investigations, keeping the victim informed, adherence to the UN model policy, and transparency and accountability.
These are early signs of the results we are observing, and thank you so much for your continued support in this very important area. We will continue to improve.
In my report, I highlight two recommendations.
The first is a request for improved collaboration and cooperation from Member States in countries in which WHO has development and humanitarian operations.
The second is based on the observation by all humanitarian actors that while agencies can fund basic prevention and mitigation actions, the funding for this work in humanitarian and health emergency response remains a major challenge.
We seek the support of Member States to ensure we have the resources for this vital area of our work.
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Chair, dear colleagues and friends,
Thank you all once again for your engagement in this committee, and your commitment to building a stronger WHO.
I look forward to our continued work together to promote, provide and protect the health of the world’s people.
I thank you.