Dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. I am pleased to have the opportunity to meet with all of you today.
Sexual and reproductive health and rights are a cornerstone for better health and must be an integral part of universal health coverage.
WHO is dedicated to supporting evidence-based programs, research, and policies to support SRHR for people everywhere.
This topic is of particular interest for me, as during my time as Minister of Health in Ethiopia, I saw first-hand how important these issues are to advance the situation of not only of women and girls, but of entire societies.
It is a health area that affects every single one of us and WHO is committed to working with CSOs to further this important agenda.
Today marks our 13th dialogue with civil society organizations.
These dialogues provide an opportunity to learn about your challenges but more importantly hear from you about your ideas and proposals for how we can better work together and improve collaboration.
WHO's work on SRHR includes generating evidence and research on innovative technologies and approaches; issuing global guidelines and normative standards; and supporting countries to implement guidelines and strengthen health systems.
Implementation at country level, and managing misinformation - which is a particular issue in the area of SRHR - remain some of our biggest challenges.
CSOs have an integral role to play here.
Let me highlight some of the major areas:
First, implementation. CSOs have a critical role to play in facilitating the use of guidelines among stakeholders in countries.
Second, setting the research agenda. CSOs can help inform WHO about local needs to inform global research agendas and the development of new guidelines.
Third, misinformation. CSOs can help combat misinformation by working with WHO to ensure that evidence is packaged and disseminated in a way that is well understood and useful for communities.
Finally, accountability. We look to CSOs to help hold WHO's global, regional, and country offices accountable to deliver on SRH for everyone everywhere
Speaking of accountability, its also important to me that we hold ourselves accountable for our actions and ensure that neither we nor our collaborators engage in sexual exploitation, abuse or harassment.
In 2020, in response to allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by responders in the 10th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I established an Independent Commission, led by two prominent members of civil society.
This was the first time that a United Nations agency appointed an independent commission and an external investigator.
The reason we did that was because we did not want to keep doing things the same way, and getting the same results.
Since the independent commission delivered its report in 2021, we have been implementing the recommendations.
This includes improving victim and survivor services, to put them first;
Establishing a dedicated investigations team; and strengthening our policies and procedures to safeguard our community operations and change our organizational culture.
We remain committed to becoming an organization for which zero tolerance is a reality and not only a slogan.
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We have a new policy on Preventing and addressing Sexual misconduct and we have a three year strategy that aims to put victims and survivors first.
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Thank you all for your continued partnership in working to expand services to protect and promote sexual and reproductive health and rights around the world.
I thank especially our colleagues and partners at the International Planned Parenthood Federation for hosting this dialogue, in partnership with the Implementing Best Practices Network.
And of course, to all the CSO colleagues who are with us today to share their experiences.
I look forward to today's discussions and to working with you more to advance our joint agenda to ensuring SRHR all around the world.
I thank you.
