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Please let me start by thanking the Viet Nam Administration of Disease Prevention at the Ministry of Health for organizing this Country Self-Evaluation Workshop, as part of the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) process.
I would also like to sincerely thank the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australian Embassy in Viet Nam for stepping in earlier this year, with financial support for this important JEE process. We are deeply grateful to you and all health partners who continue to support Viet Nam in this very worthwhile work – and look forward to discussing further opportunities to expand our partnerships.
The workshop that is starting today marks a critical step in assessing and strengthening Viet Nam’s core capacities under the International Health Regulations or IHR. The IHR a legally binding treaty among 196 countries including Viet Nam. They define countries’ rights and obligations when managing public health threats that have the potential to cross borders.
The self-assessment workshop that we are starting today will serve as the foundation for an external evaluation mission in July – which we hope will help to inform the basis for Viet Nam’s next National Health Security Action Plan.
Conducting this JEE reflects Viet Nam’s continued commitment to strengthening health security, and to the importance of transparency, evidence-based planning, and multi-sectoral engagement in this process.
It is excellent to see, in this room, such a diverse group of participants, representing an incredibly broad range of agencies – including technical institutes, many Ministries, government agencies across all levels, and of course partners.
This is important because strengthening health security requires coordinated action across sectors, including human and animal health, environment, agriculture, food safety, chemical and radiation safety, finance, communication, disaster management, transportation, customs, civil aviation, universities or institutes, and political leadership.
We will need this kind of cross-sector collaboration in addressing the complex health security challenges that our interconnected world faces.
One example is antimicrobial resistance or AMR, which requires – in particular, the human and animal health sectors to come together.
Similarly challenging – but also important for different sectors to work together – is the threat posed by zoonotic diseases – that is, diseases that jump from animals to people, such as avian influenza. And of course, novel zoonotic pathogens are of particular concern, because of their pandemic potential.
It is not a question of “if”, but “when” and “what” the next global pandemic will be. This is why sustained investment in and effort on preparedness is essential.
The evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic is clear: those countries that had good preparedness and response systems in place fared much better than those which did not. But for every country, there were important lessons learned which need to be addressed for the future.
Indeed, Viet Nam is a great example of this.
The country’s quick and effective response to COVID-19 built on foundations laid during its first JEE, which WHO was proud to support in 2016.
That process highlighted both gaps and strengths, enabling Viet Nam to enhance preparedness and readiness, coordinate multisectoral responses, and maintain public confidence. Viet Nam acted early and was able to save countless lives, and protect society and the economy.
But like other countries, Viet Nam experienced challenges during and after the COVID-19 – for example, with supply chains for essentials like medicines and vaccines, and with sustaining surveillance and scaling up newer capacities such as genomic sequencing.
This second JEE is an opportunity to build on those lessons, address the remaining gaps, and prepare for future challenges.
Given the current very difficult financial climate, the JEE will play another important role: it will help to provide a clear, evidence-based and multi-sectoral framework for identifying the highest priority investments in addressing most urgent gaps in health security.
In doing this, the JEE will also help Viet Nam coordinate partner and donor support. Development partners, donors and multilateral agencies use JEE findings to align their funding and technical assistance with nationally identified priorities, ensuring more effective and targeted international support.
For WHO’s part, we are very proud to support this JEE process, as well as to provide ongoing policy, technical and strategic support in key areas of health security, such as disease surveillance, emergency preparedness, timely reporting under the IHR, and conducting after-action reviews and simulation exercises to strengthen response capacities.
Viet Nam can, of course, continue to count on our very strong support.
Under the leadership of the Government, WHO will support integrating the outcomes of the JEE into the National Action Plan for Health Security, and support efforts to find domestic and international finance for Viet Nam’s priorities.
I would like to conclude with the words of General Secretary To Lam on Vietnamese Doctor’s Day in February – as a reminder of just how important the work we are doing here together this week is.
He said, “Protecting, caring for and improving people's health is not only the task of the health sector but also the responsibility of each citizen, the entire political system and the whole society.”
In this spirit, I would like to encourage you all to participate fully in this process, for a safer and healthier Viet Nam.
I wish you an excellent workshop!
Xin cảm ơn!