- Hon’ble Chair of 77th RC
- Vice-Chairs
- Excellences
- Delegates
- Partners
- WHO colleagues
- Friends
We have come to the end of yet another successful Regional Committee.
I would like to thank all of you, our distinguished delegates, for your thoughts, your insights, and your participation.
It is your collaboration which has advanced our agenda and pushed our mission forward.
In my Introduction to the Annual Report on Monday, I was able to tell you about the highlights of the progress that our Member States have made over the past year.
The Regional Committee is the culmination of our collaborative processes and engagement with Member States and partners.
I appreciate that you have adopted 3 significant programmatic resolutions:
- The Ministerial Declaration on Adolescent Responsive Health Systems addresses the imperative to make our health systems responsive to the unique needs of our more than 350m adolescents
- I thank our Member States for resolving to expand the corpus of the SEARHEF to 3m US Dollars
- While regionally, we have made good progress on elimination of measles and rubella, the Covid19 pandemic did disrupt this progress
- Taking into account this reality, I am pleased the Regional Committee has resolved to revise the elimination target to 2026.
On Monday, when our DG DR. Tedros addressed us, he asked three things of us:
- He asked our Member States to engage actively in the negotiations for the Pandemic Agreement, and to complete it by the end of this year
- He urged all Member States to implement GPW14
- And he requested Member States and partners to contribute to the investment round
On the matter of the Pandemic Agreement, I echo the DG’s words and urge all our Member States to help promulgate the treaty at the earliest
I
thank the Member States for welcoming the vision laid out in GPW14
I am
pleased to note that our Member States appreciated the work of the Secretariat
to develop the GP14 and its results framework
The
Secretariat in turn expresses its thanks and appreciation to Member States for
their excellent contributions during the GPW14 process
My
personal appreciation and thanks to all our Member States and partners for
their commitments during the Investment Round event
SEARO
is tremendously heartened by the generous contributions from Member States and
Partners
I am
very pleased that our Member States have pledged $345m to WHO, with two more pledges
still to be announced in the near future
Nonetheless,
we continue to encourage additional contributions to support our ambitious
vision and plans
I
would also like to thank everyone for their participation at our side-event on
50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization
All of
us know the tremendous impact of the EPI on our region
We
continue this vitally important work across our countries and communities
Looking
ahead, we would like to thank our upcoming Regional Committee session hosts, Sri
Lanka in 2025, and Timor-Leste in 2026
I
would in particular like to thank all of you who have worked so extremely hard
to organise this Regional Committee session
You
hard work and late nights have not gone unnoticed, and are not unappreciated.
Chairman,
Vice Chairs, DG, CdC HQ, Directors, Secretariat, my colleagues - I thank you
all
We are
one team, in one organisation with a unified vision - a vision which can
benefit every living person on this planet.
I am pleased to be among you in this noble calling, and in this noble endeavour of ours
I
thank you.