Regional Director's Report

This annual report highlights the Organization’s progress in delivering better health to all of the 1.9 billion people in the Western Pacific Region, as well as ideas for tackling health challenges likely to confront the Region in the years ahead.

Member States in the Western Pacific Region achieved significant progress towards better health under the leadership of Dr Shin Young-soo, who put countries at the centre of the Organization’s work during his 10-year tenure as WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific.

Dr Takeshi Kasai, who began his term as Regional Director in February 2019, had served as deputy to Dr Shin, ensuring a smooth transition to new leadership and continuity of WHO’s work.

Dr Kasai’s leadership agenda for the coming five years is detailed in For the Future: Towards the Healthiest and Safest Region, a white paper developed in close consultation with Member States and partners. It reflects a commitment to build on Dr Shin’s legacy of reform and leverage it for action to address the challenges of tomorrow and make the Western Pacific the healthiest and safest region in the world.

Under the leadership of former Regional Director Dr Shin Young-soo, WHO and Member States in the Western Pacific Region achieved significant progress towards better health. Dr Shin’s reforms to the Organization, which put countries at the centre, will endure as his legacy.

Dr Takeshi Kasai served as deputy to Dr Shin, helping to ensure a smooth transition between the two regional directors and continuation of WHO’s work. Dr Kasai’s leadership agenda for the coming five years, shaped over the first five months of his term, reflects his commitment to building on Dr Shin’s legacy of reforms to WHO in the Western Pacific Region, leveraging them for action today to address the challenges of tomorrow.

Member States in the WHO Western Pacific Region have had significant success in combating communicable diseases through the introduction of effective country-centred interventions, as advocated and strengthened under former Regional Director Dr Shin Young-soo. Still, several diseases – including dengue, hepatitis, malaria, measles and tuberculosis (TB) – continue to be major drivers of morbidity and mortality in a number of countries in the Region.

Over the past decade, action against these infectious diseases was focused on the need to finally conquer diseases that WHO has battled since its inception. WHO Regional Director Dr Takeshi Kasai has vowed to intensify efforts to address these “old enemies” and reach the unreached in the coming years to eliminate or end epidemics of communicable diseases.

A decade of work by Member States, supported by WHO and other partners, has contributed to the achievement of many global and regional milestones, including many targets in the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. With support from WHO at the country level, Member States are working towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals to put an end to epidemics of major communicable diseases by 2030.

Health security in the Western Pacific Region is continuously threatened by emerging infectious diseases, outbreak-prone diseases, natural disasters and unsafe food. While the Region has made considerable progress in strengthening health security systems, the context in which we manage health security is changing rapidly. The nature and range of threats we face are increasingly complex, and our health security systems must evolve to address new challenges.

Building health security systems to manage these threats takes time. For more than a decade, the Asia Pacific Strategy for Emerging Diseases and Public Health Emergencies (APSED III) and its earlier versions have driven joint efforts to advance implementation of the International Health Regulations, known as IHR (2005), towards a “region able to prevent, detect and respond to public health emergencies through collective responsibility for public health security”.

Three phases of activity, corresponding to the 2005, 2010 and 2016 versions of APSED, have helped countries move away from one-off health security projects and concentrate on long-term system development, incorporating a continuous improvement approach. In the nearly 15 years since APSED was introduced, Member States have upgraded health security systems by training and deploying rapid response teams, building event-based surveillance systems, educating field epidemiologists, strengthening laboratory networks, reinforcing risk assessments, improving risk communications, establishing emergency operations centres and forming emergency medical teams (EMTs).

The Western Pacific Region has seen dramatic improvements in population health over the past decade, but not everyone has benefited equally from this progress. The latest data suggest that wide inequities persist in terms of coverage for essential services and access to health services – from one country to another and within countries.

In an effort to address these inequities and achieve the Sustainable Development Goal health targets, WHO has intensified support to Member States to strengthen health systems and advance towards universal health coverage (UHC). This support is guided by Universal Health Coverage: Moving Towards Better Health, a regional action framework endorsed by the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific in October 2015.

The Action Framework highlights the five attributes of UHC – quality, efficiency, equity, accountability, and sustainability and resilience – and provides guidance on priority actions Member States can consider as they move towards UHC. Building on the Action Framework, the Regional Committee in October 2018 endorsed regional plans on e-health, hospital planning and legal frameworks for health, which will help further strengthen health systems and support UHC.

The WHO Division of Pacific Technical Support (DPS) was established in 2010 to coordinate tailored and timely public health support to 21 Pacific island countries and areas (PICs). Early in his tenure, former Regional Director Dr Shin Young-soo stressed the need to put countries at the centre of WHO’s work. He delivered on that promise in the Pacific by creating DPS to coordinate intercountry support programmes and ensure that necessary and timely technical support is provided wherever needed.

In addition to its office in Suva, Fiji, DPS comprises six other offices across the Pacific. In guiding Member States, the division leverages the strengths of integrated approaches on regional issues and country-specific expertise at the national level. This direction has continued under the leadership of Regional Director Dr Takeshi Kasai, as his management team builds upon a legacy of progress to make the Region the safest and healthiest in the world.

The Office of the Regional Director, the Division of Programme Management and the Division of Administration and Finance work in close coordination to support WHO’s work in the Western Pacific Region, coordinating technical programmes, country support, partner and donor relations, administrative and financial support, and communications.

The work of these branches of management is guided by the Regional Director’s vision of ensuring countries are always the starting point for WHO’s work. This year, the management team has led efforts to strengthen strategic communications including through the establishment of a new website for WHO in the Western Pacific Region, has continued to promote a strong culture of accountability and transparency, and has helped shape the new Regional Director’s vision and priorities for the next five years.