Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Good afternoon to all of you, and a very happy New Year.
I thank the Nizami Ganjavi International Center the invitation to addres you, for hosting this high-level meeting, and for its mission to promote learning, tolerance, dialogue and understanding.
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated just how badly these things are needed in our world.
Yesterday marked three years since China reported the first death from COVID-19.
We had no idea then of how this new coronavirus would turn our world upside down.
Health systems have been stretched beyond their breaking points;
Health services have been severely disrupted;
And almost 6.7 million deaths have been reported to WHO, although we know that the real toll is much higher because of under-reporting in many countries.
The impact of the pandemic goes far beyond the death and disease caused by the virus itself.
Businesses and livelihoods have been lost;
The global economy was plunged into recession;
And political divisions have widened, domestically and internationally.
The pandemic is a powerful demonstration that when health is at risk, everything is at risk.
We owe it to those we have lost, and those who will come after us, to learn the lessons from this pandemic, and make the changes that must be made to keep the world safer.
If we fail to learn those lessons, we will perpetuate the cycle of panic and neglect that has characterized the global response to epidemics and pandemics for decades.
As the world emerges from the most severe health crisis in a century, WHO has outlined five priorities for a healthier, safer, fairer and more sustainable world:
Promoting health;
Providing health;
Protecting health;
Powering health;
And performing for health.
We call them the "five Ps". Allow me to outline each one briefly.
First, promoting health.
Health is created not in the clinic or the hospital, but in homes, schools, streets, workplaces, supermarkets and cities - in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the products we consume, and the conditions in which we live and work.
Much of the work that Ministries of Health do is dealing with the consequences of unhealthy diets, unsafe water and sanitation, polluted environments, and dangerous roads.
That's why we are calling on all Member States to make an urgent paradigm shift towards promoting health and well-being and preventing disease, by addressing its root causes.
Making this shift means that health cannot be just the business of the health ministry or the health sector, but of the whole of government, and the whole of society.
Health must be a primary consideration in finance, urban planning, tax policy, transport, education policy, commerce, trade, infrastructure and so on.
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Second, providing health.
Around the world, hundreds of millions of people get sick and die every year because they cannot access the health services they need, or are simply unable to afford them.
Universal health coverage is the best way to provide the essential health services that people need, when and where they need them, without exposing them to financial hardship.
And the best way for countries to deliver universal health coverage is by radically reorienting their health systems towards primary health care.
More than 90% of essential health services can be delivered through primary health care, including many services to promote health, prevent disease, and avoid or delay the need for more costly secondary and tertiary care.
As the "eyes and ears" of the health system, primary health care also plays a vital role in detecting outbreaks at their earliest stages.
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Third, protecting health.
The pandemic has exposed serious gaps in the world's defences against epidemics, pandemics and other health emergencies.
There have been several reviews of the global response to the pandemic, with more than 300 recommendations.
Building on these reviews and recommendations, WHO has made 10 key proposals for strengthening the global architecture for health emergency preparedness, response and resilience.
These include actions for stronger governance, stronger financing, stronger systems and tools, and a stronger WHO, under the umbrella of a new pandemic accord.
Several parts of this architecture are already being constructed.
For example, countries are now negotiating a new legally-binding international instrument;
A new Pandemic Fund has been established, to provide catalytic and gap-filling financing for the countries that need it most;
We have established a new WHO Hub for Pandemic Epidemic and Pandemic intelligence, to generate better data and better analytics for better decisions;
And we are piloting other new initiatives to foster greater cooperation, mutual accountability, and mutual trust.
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The fourth priority is powering health, by harnessing science, research, innovation, data, digital technologies and partnership.
Advances in science and research are constantly pushing back the boundaries of the unknown and the impossible, increasing our understanding, and opening new possibilities.
Innovations in health products and service delivery give us hope of overcoming challenges that once seemed insurmountable.
Digital technologies offer huge potential for identifying who is being left behind, and delivering health services in new ways, to more people, especially in hard-to-reach areas.
To pick up the pace towards the Sustainable Development Goals, we must pick up the pace and scale at which science, research, innovations and digital technologies are adopted and implemented.
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The challenge is to make these tools available to the people who need them most - who are most at risk and most disadvantaged.
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Fifth, performing for health.
This refers to the need for a stronger WHO at the centre of the global health security architecture.
The world needs a WHO that is equipped, empowered and enabled to perform at the level the world expects of it.
For far too many years, the world's expectations of WHO have far outstripped its resources and mandate.
As you may be aware, the World Health Assembly last year passed a landmark resolution to increase assessed contributions - or membership fees - to a target of 50% of our budget by the end of the decade, from just 16% currently.
This shift to higher quality funding will have major benefits for WHO's ability to deliver long-term programming in countries, by attracting and retaining top global health experts to deliver that programming in a sustained way.
Not only does it increase the level of funding but it gives WHO the level of independence it needs.
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Promoting, providing, protecting, powering and performing for health.
Underpinning all of this must be the conviction that health is not a luxury for the rich, but a human right for all;
Not a cost, but an investment;
Not simply an outcome of development, but the foundation of social and economic stability and security.
I thank you.
