- Representatives of our Member States,
- Partners,
- My WHO Colleagues,
A good morning to all of you. Welcome to this important workshop on WHO costing and budgeting tools for multisectoral National Action Plans on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). It is a pleasure to host you to address a critical challenge in our fight against AMR.
AMR poses a significant challenge to global public health, with devastating effects on the efficacy of essential medicines and the ability to effectively treat infectious diseases. Several factors, including a high population density, limited access to healthcare services, and the misuse and exploitation of antimicrobials, make the South-East Asia region particularly prone to this threat.
AMR is associated with 5 million deaths annually worldwide, with current estimates of 1.4 million deaths in our South-East Asia Region in 2019.
If no action is taken now, it is estimated that by 2050, 10 million fatalities will occur annually on a global scale, costing the global economy a total of one hundred trillion dollars. By 2050, according to a report by the World Bank, antimicrobial resistance will be responsible for a decrease of up to 3.8% in global exports, a decrease of 7.5% per year in livestock production, and an increase of $1 trillion in healthcare-related costs.
In our South-East Asia Region, while all eleven Member States have developed multisectoral NAPs to address AMR, only a fraction has successfully implemented these plans and fewer have allocated national funds. The first cycle of NAPs was primarily aspirational, lacking budgetary consideration and integration with sectoral plans. The need to bridge this gap between aspiration and implementation is quite evident.
WHO has supported Member states by developing tools on costing and budgeting to cost their national action AMR plan. In our Region, WHO supported Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka to conduct national workshop on WHO costing and budgeting tools for their revised multisectoral NAP-AMR during 2022–2023. Now, we must extend this support to the rest of our member states as they embark on developing, or revising, their NAPs.
The goal of this workshop is clear: to build capacity for developing a costed and budgeted multisectoral national action plan for AMR, in order to operationalize the plans and assure their implementation and sustainability in the country.
Those responsible for allocating resources need a clear understanding of the associated costs. They need to understand how much the activities included in the NAP will cost, how many activities are already being funded, and how the budget can be increased. This workshop equips you to assess the financial implications of your NAPs. It will allow you to make informed choices about resource allocation and will enhance decision-making.
I encourage all of you to actively participate, interact, and engage in fruitful discussions. Please keep in mind the unique challenges faced by our region, and also draw inspiration from successful initiatives in other countries. Your diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives will enrich our learning journey, and enable us to explore a range of perspectives.
Thank you once again for your participation, and for your dedication to this critical issue. Together, we can make significant strides towards a future where antimicrobial resistance is effectively managed and controlled.
I wish you all a productive and insightful workshop ahead. Thank you.