WHO, IOM with the support of National Programme for Hygiene at the Borders trained more than 50 people in Mbandaka on the participative mapping to identify main points of gatherings to prevent Ebola.
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Our first year together
Ladies and gentlemen,
It's now been just over a year since I received the greatest honour of my life and was elected to become the eighth Director-General of the World Health Organization. Today, I remain proud and humbled that the nations of the world entrusted me with the responsibility of leading this great organization.
They have high expectations of WHO. So they should; so do I.
There is no commodity in the world more precious than health. An institution charged with defending the health of 7 billion people therefore bears great responsibility and must be held to high standards. The most powerful reminders of that responsibility in the past year have been the people I have met all over the world whose health we work to protect.
I think of the camp for internally-displaced I visited in Borno State, Maiduguri, Nigeria, and the baby I met there. Despite all the hardship her family has endured, there was innocence and happiness in her eyes.
I think of the desperation on the face of the mother I met in Yemen, who walked for hours with her malnourished child to reach the health centre, begging the staff to take care of her child.
I think of the WHO staff and health workers who have worked around the clock to stop the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
I'm proud of the way the whole Organization has responded to this outbreak, at headquarters, the regional office and the country office. And I particularly want to thank our partners, Médecins Sans Frontiéres, the World Food Programme, the Red Cross, UNICEF and many others who have responded quickly.
The outbreak in DRC illustrates once again that health security and universal health coverage are two sides of the same coin. The best thing we can do to prevent future outbreaks is to strengthen health systems everywhere.
It also reminded me of what is at stake every day I come to work. It reminded me that we must act with a sense of urgency in everything we do, because every moment we lose is a matter of life and death.
That’s why we established a High-Level Commission on Noncommunicable Diseases, to stop the premature and preventable deaths of millions of people;
It’s why we established an initiative on climate change and health in small island developing states, to defend the health of people who cannot defend themselves against a world that is changing around them;
It’s why we’re working with the Stop TB Partnership, the Global Fund and civil society, and UNITAID to treat 40 million people globally who are infected with tuberculosis and don't know it;
It’s why we’re working on an aggressive new initiative to jumpstart progress against malaria, an entirely treatable disease that still kills half a million people every single year;
It’s why we have launched a call to action to eliminate cervical cancer, a disease for which we have all the ingredients for success;
It’s why we have launched a new initiative to eliminate trans fats from the global food supply by 2023;
And it’s why we have fast-tracked the development of our 13th General Programme of Work (GPW). It's objectives are:
Promote health
Keep the world safe
Serve the vulnerable
This is our shared sense of purpose. This is the goal to which we all subscribe. In fact, these three principles have always been part of our DNA.
I’m reminded of that every day when I arrive at work and see the statue of a child being vaccinated against smallpox. The eradication of this ancient disease stands as one of the greatest achievements not only in the history of WHO, but in the history of medicine.
This is what WHO is capable of – of course with our Partners. This is an organization that can change the course of history.
And we are still changing history, every day.
I saw this in DRC.
I saw it in Yemen, where WHO and our partners have saved tens of thousands of lives, establishing more than 1000 treatment centres, and vaccinating hundreds of thousands of people against cholera.
I saw it in Madagascar, where we sent 1.2 million doses of antibiotics and released a substantial amount of emergency funding - bringing the plague outbreak under control in just three months.
In the past year, WHO has responded to 50 emergencies in 47 countries and territories, from Bangladesh and Brazil to Nigeria and Syria.
Earlier this year we took another very important step towards a safer world by establishing the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. This is an independent initiative convened by WHO and the World Bank to monitor system-wide preparedness for emergencies.
We are honored that this new initiative will be led by Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, and Mr Elhadj As Sy, Secretary General of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
What’s less visible, but just as important, is the impact of our normative work.
Prequalification enables millions of people to have access to safe and effective medicines and vaccines.
The International Classification of Diseases helps track the reasons people get sick and die, so health systems can respond accordingly.
The guidelines and standards we produce ensure that people all around the world receive safe and effective care, based on the best evidence.
So our new GPW or strategic plan is not about reinventing the wheel. It’s about making a bigger impact than we already make. It’s ambitious, and it must be. Too much is at stake for us to be modest. The vision set at our founding 70 years ago was not a modest vision. Our Constitution is not a modest document. Our founders did not set out to make modest improvements to health. They envisioned a world in which all people enjoy the highest attainable standard of health, as a fundamental human right.
We follow in their footsteps, when we say that we will not settle for a world in which there is a 33-year difference in life expectancy between some countries.
We will not settle for a world in which people get sick because the air they breathe is not fit for human consumption.
We will not settle for a world in which people have to choose between sickness and poverty because of the costs of paying for care out of their own pockets.
That is what our new GPW is all about. Its aim is to help us keep our focus on delivering impact in countries and making a measurable difference in the lives of the people we serve.
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So what will it take?
What will it take to translate the ambitious “triple billion” targets of the strategic plan into a global reality that touches the lives of people all over the planet?
I believe there are the three keys to success.
A transformed WHO
For the past year, I have been focused on laying the four foundations of this transformation: First, the GPW itself, which has been developed 12 months ahead of schedule, to establish our mission and strategic plan, not only for my term, but for the long term. Second, a transformation plan, to make WHO more effective and efficient by streamlining the business practices that lead to wastage, and that slow us down and hold us back. Third, a strong senior leadership team, with deep experience and talent from all over the world. And fourth, we have developed an investment case which describes what a fully funded WHO could achieve.
Political commitment
I know from my own experience in politics that with buy-in from the highest levels, anything is possible. Without it, progress is difficult. That's why I have made a priority of engaging with leaders all over the world, to advocate for political action, and especially on universal health coverage (UHC). What I have discovered is that most leaders I talk to need little convincing. We are living in a time of unprecedented political commitment to health. Several leaders have already started rising to the challenge. Of course, no health system is perfect, and no country is the same. Every country's journey towards UHC is unique.
Partnership
The great advantage we have now that we didn't have 70 years ago, or even 40 years ago, is that there are so many other actors in public health. There are thousands of other organizations all over the world who share our vision, and who have knowledge, skills, resources and networks that we do not. Some people say that WHO is under threat because of the number of new actors in global health. I say we are more likely to succeed than ever before. By working more closely with our partners, our impact can be exponentially larger than when we act alone. To fulfill our mandate, we must make our partnerships even stronger.