WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia – Report of the Seventy-eighth Session

Overview

The WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia is the World Health Organization’s governing body in the Region. It meets annually to review progress in health development in the Region, formulate resolutions on health issues for Member States, and review past resolutions. It also considers regional implications of World Health Assembly resolutions, among others.

The Seventy-eighth Regional Committee Session was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 13 to 15 October 2025. Representatives from nine of the Region’s 10 Member States attended the Session.  

The Regional Committee discussed critical public health issues and adopted the ministerial ‘Colombo Declaration on healthy ageing through strengthened primary health care’. Other programmatic resolutions were in the areas of migrant health and UHC; antimicrobial resistance; tobacco control; health-promoting schools; civil registration and vital statistics; emergency preparedness; and health professional education and training. Statutory decisions on the Programme Budget, SEARHEF and SEAHEARTS, among others, also formed part of the corpus.  

The Committee reviewed reports on progress in the implementation of nine of its past resolutions; as well as issues related to WHO Evaluation and the status of construction of the new Regional Office Building. The Committee also held consultations related to the process of nomination and appointment of the Regional Directors and amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the Regional Committee.