Your Excellencies Ministers of Well being and Heads of Delegations,
Women and Gents,
It’s my honour and pleasure to current my report on WHO’s work within the Area to you immediately.
The annual report publication that was shared with you offers in depth details about WHO’s actions and achievements throughout 2023.
It testifies to the laborious work, dedication and tenacity of my revered predecessor, Dr Ahmed
Al-Mandhari, and the fabulous staff that I’ve inherited from him.
I commend the report back to you.
In my speech immediately, I wish to deal with the place we at the moment are – and the place we’re going.
Women and Gents,
The previous 9 months have been an astonishing journey for me.
I’m from this Area and I’ve at all times had a powerful connection to it.
However I’ve come to understand it so a lot better since I grew to become WHO Regional Director.
And I like it a lot extra.
I’ve already visited 11 Member States and I’m trying ahead to visiting and assembly individuals in each remaining nation – beginning with Djibouti very quickly.
Let me share what I’ve realized to date.
Inevitably, I’ve seen extra heartbreak than I believed attainable.
After I took workplace, my colleagues, household and associates congratulated me, but in addition warned me that I must face some harsh realities.
They have been so proper.
I nonetheless bear in mind the shock I felt throughout my first go to to Sudan.
I met exhausted well being employees struggling to avoid wasting lives with out primary provides.
Anxious moms with malnourished infants – pores and skin on bones, because the Director-Basic mentioned.
Regardless of our greatest efforts, Sudan is now dealing with the world’s largest starvation disaster and the world’s largest displacement disaster.
The struggling is unimaginable.
And in Aleppo, within the Syrian Arab Republic, the destruction was past something I had seen.
Years of struggle, the 2023 earthquake and ongoing insecurity have devastated the well being system.
And sanctions are posing extra limitations to important companies.
I met sufferers of their 30s and 40s on dialysis, unable to afford their medicines.
In Gaza, the devastation has allowed polio come again after 25 years.
Visiting in July, I witnessed individuals residing in circumstances that nobody ought to ever must endure.
Past the bodily toll, the emotional and psychological pressure was palpable.
“Are we not human too?” one girl requested. “Does the world not see us as human beings?”
I couldn’t discover the phrases to answer.
In Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria, I noticed the horrifying toll of substance use.
I met girls and adolescents – sure, adolescents – struggling to interrupt freed from habit and reclaim their lives.
And in so many different nations, too – in Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Yemen – there are individuals dealing with tragic losses and struggling to outlive.
Now we have to cope with these conditions.
And we’ll by no means let the world ignore them.
However we can’t afford to lose sight of the positives.
Have a look at the emergency response in Palestine.
Have a look at how shortly WHO, the nationwide authorities and our companions have been in a position to vaccinate greater than 560 000 kids in Gaza in probably the most testing circumstances possible.
And by the way in which, most vaccinators are the Gazan well being workforce themselves – superb, courageous, resilient individuals.
Have a look at the solidarity from different nations.
Large donations from Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Greater than 33 million {dollars}’ value of well being provides already procured, and greater than 65% of them already despatched from WHO’s hub in Dubai.
Sufferers evacuated from Gaza to Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
And from Sudan to Egypt and Libya.
So many nations working collectively to assist these in want.
Welcoming sufferers and refugees regardless of the stress on their well being techniques.
I’ve seen this whereas visiting Member States.
And naturally, the achievements in our Area usually are not restricted to emergency response.
Take Wholesome Cities, for instance – considered one of our key well being promotion programmes.
Now we have come a great distance since Sharjah grew to become the Area’s first Wholesome Metropolis in 2015.
Our community now contains 118 cities, stretching from Morocco throughout to Pakistan, and from Tunisia all the way down to Sudan.
Of these cities, Jeddah alone covers over 4 million individuals.
Bahrain’s Capital Governorate has simply grow to be our first Wholesome Governorate.
Oman has the primary Wholesome Island in our Area, Maseera.
Kuwait is pioneering the usage of Wholesome Metropolis indicators.
And each single municipality in Qatar is now a Wholesome Metropolis.
We’re seeing some beautiful beneficial properties in communicable illness management.
Egypt is main the world in hepatitis C elimination. And now they’ve eradicated malaria.
Jordan has grow to be the world’s first nation to remove leprosy.
And Pakistan has simply eradicated trachoma.
And there are such a lot of different standout tales, throughout so many alternative areas of public well being.
Within the Islamic Republic of Iran they’ve put household schooling on the core of public well being efforts. They produce 96% of their medicines, and they’re main the way in which in medical analysis.
Iraq is the primary nation on this planet to finish polio transition – and we hope for the others to do the identical.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are working intently collectively to lastly finish polio – and likewise now collaborating on many different well being challenges, comparable to coaching and schooling.
And Syria is working to make companies extra accessible to individuals residing in distant areas.
There are successes in each nation of our Area.
Forgive me for not itemizing all of them, however we might be right here for a number of days.
The purpose is: there’s quite a lot of good work happening.
And there’s the potential to take action far more.
And that brings me to my foremost matter immediately: the place ought to we go subsequent?
Your Excellencies,
Yesterday, we shared our plans for the approaching 4 years – together with our new regional strategic operational plan and the three flagship initiatives.
Thanks all for an exceptionally wealthy dialogue and important endorsements.
And thanks additionally for the invaluable bilateral conferences that I’ve loved with so lots of you since I assumed my position.
I’m studying a lot.
WHO belongs to you.
Our plans are based mostly in your enter.
The strategic operational plan for the subsequent 4 years is designed to satisfy YOUR priorities, as recognized by way of our current consultations.
And my selection of flagships was knowledgeable by my conversations with Your Excellencies.
Now we have mentioned these plans in some element.
Right this moment, I wish to spotlight three key components: funding, collaboration and accountability.
Your Excellencies,
Too typically in coverage discussions, public well being spending is spoken about as some form of indulgence.
The thought appears to be that, for all its clear social advantages, well being is just not good for the financial system – it’s only a drain on sources.
We have to change the dialog.
The reality is, well being is likely one of the greatest, shrewdest investments that any authorities could make.
Correctly focused and managed expenditure on well being will repay itself many occasions over by releasing individuals to reside more healthy, happier, extra productive lives.
That was the message of the landmark decision on “The Economics of Well being for All” that Your Excellencies endorsed at this 12 months’s Well being Meeting.
And it’s a message that each minister of well being must proclaim, time and again, to safe the well being sector’s share of restricted authorities budgets and mobilize multisectoral assist for motion on well being.
Our new plans can assist you in doing precisely that.
Every of the three flagship initiatives won’t solely enhance well being and well-being throughout the Area, but in addition enhance social and financial improvement.
We’re spending billions of {dollars} yearly on important medicines, vaccines and medical merchandise.
Allow us to deal with increase home manufacturing, provide chains and techniques, in order that extra individuals get the merchandise they want and we maintain extra of that cash in our Area.
Allow us to scale up funding in our well being workforce, ensuring that it’s focused strategically to cowl probably the most crucial gaps in each single nation.
Each greenback you spend in your well being workforce can generate as a lot as 9 {dollars} in enhanced productiveness over the long run.
And our initiative to deal with substance use could provide much more and greater paybacks.
Every greenback spent on treating substance use issues brings a return to societies of as much as 12 {dollars}.
So once we spend extra on prevention, we’ll save a fortune on therapy.
The hyperlink between funding in well being and financial progress has been confirmed earlier than, and it’s such a robust argument.
Actually, we now have supported many nations to develop funding instances on key challenges like NCDs, tobacco management and psychological well being. They’re nice advocacy instruments.
All of the plans that we’re proposing for the subsequent 4 years are based mostly on one of the best scientific proof accessible to us.
They’re meant to assist the best and probably the most cost-effective interventions to enhance your nation’s well being outcomes, considering the regional context and uncertainties.
And to get much more worth from the cash and energy you make investments, we’ll leverage partnerships.
Collaboration with different sectors together with the personal sector is a key characteristic of those plans.
For instance, WHO will facilitate pooled procurement to strengthen nations’ collective shopping for energy for medicines and vaccines.
We’ll encourage cooperation between Member States on well being workforce, in order that extra of our expert well being professionals keep inside their nations and on this Area.
And we’ll work with you to arrange a community of centres of excellence on tackling substance use.
We’ll create new platforms for sharing information and experience.
And constructing on the fantastic work of my predecessor, Dr Al-Mandhari, we’ll use current platforms just like the Regional Well being Alliance to enhance coordination between completely different United Nations businesses and different stakeholders.
We wish each associate to contribute the place they’ve a comparative benefit.
We wish to take advantage of all accessible sources.
And we wish to maximize WHO’s convening energy to make it simpler for nations to assist one another.
In order that extra nations can improve their nationwide regulatory authorities for medicines.
Extra nations can enhance coaching programmes and provide higher careers to their well being professionals.
Extra nations can combine substance use therapy into main well being care.
As a result of when one nation succeeds in considered one of these areas, that’s already welcome progress.
But when a number of nations achieve a number of areas, it’s going to carry the entire Area.
Your Excellencies,
Women and gents,
I hope you’ve gotten all had an opportunity to review the strategic operational plan.
Now we have saved it as high-level as attainable, however inevitably it’s fairly a fancy doc.
As my expensive colleague and senior adviser Dr Mohamed Jama famous yesterday, a key characteristic of the plan is the in depth outcomes framework.
We intend to implement rigorous monitoring and analysis.
Because the saying goes, “what will get measured, will get performed”. And we wish to be certain we get our work performed over the subsequent 4 years.
Now we have chosen 77 final result indicators from GPW 14 to cowl all of the agreed precedence regional outcomes, and we now have 107 output indicators aligned to these outcomes.
Wherever attainable, we now have specified a regional baseline and an finish goal for every of the output indicators.
In some instances – and as a few of Your Excellencies talked about yesterday – we should not have knowledge accessible but to offer us a regional baseline.
Now we have famous all these gaps, and over the subsequent couple of years we’ll work to enhance the information and set up a baseline.
Now we have additionally specified annual milestones for WHO’s contribution in direction of every goal, in order that we are able to see – and Your Excellencies can see – precisely what we have to obtain annually.
We’re going to observe our progress frequently and comprehensively.
I’ll personally chair a steering committee to supervise implementation of the strategic operational plan together with the three flagship initiatives.
I’ll obtain progress reviews from WHO’s technical groups each quarter, and I’ll replace this Committee on progress yearly as a part of my annual report.
Progress on the plan will even be tracked by way of programme funds monitoring mechanisms.
And there might be an impartial analysis in 2027.
So…
You’ll be able to anticipate full transparency within the supply of those plans.
We will detect bottlenecks and cope with them promptly.
And everybody might be accountable for his or her a part of the plan.
Your Excellencies,
Attaining our objectives would require concerted efforts from the WHO Secretariat and all Member States.
So allow us to bear in mind what we’re speaking about right here immediately.
Implementing our plans efficiently would imply hundreds of thousands extra individuals within the Area getting the high-quality therapy they want.
It will imply many extra of our sensible, proficient well being professionals staying within the Area to develop their careers.
It will imply therapeutic and releasing people, households and communities affected by substance use.
And it might forestall many extra individuals from getting in poor health within the first place.
Collectively, we are able to make all this occur. We are able to change hundreds of thousands of lives for the higher.
However I want your buy-in.
Please endorse the plans which might be being offered to you.
And please work with us to make them a actuality.
I don’t anticipate it to be straightforward.
There might be ups and downs on the way in which.
However collectively, we are able to succeed.
I thanks once more for the belief you’ve gotten positioned in me.
I’ll do every little thing I can to repay your belief and assist, and ship on my mandate – for all of the individuals in our Area.
However I want your buy-in.
Please endorse the plans which might be being offered to you.
And please work with us to make them a actuality.
I don’t anticipate it to be straightforward.
There might be ups and downs on the way in which.
However collectively, we are able to succeed.
I thanks once more for the belief you’ve gotten positioned in me.
I’ll do every little thing I can to repay your belief and assist, and ship on my mandate – for all of the individuals of our Area.