Speech: Dr Margaret Chan
Report by the WHO Director-General to the Executive Board at its 130th Session
16 January 2012

[Full text: http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2012/eb_20120116/en/index.html ]

Excerpt

“…Polio eradication is also on your agenda. Authoritative bodies, like the Independent Monitoring Board and the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on immunization, tell us: we must stay the course.

Should commitment falter, polio will come roaring back. Should our resolve waver, this will be the most expensive failure in the history of public health.

You will be considering a draft resolution that proposes declaration of the completion of polio eradication as a “programmatic emergency for global public health.” I urge you to consider this resolution with utmost urgency.

Implementation of the International Health Regulations is on your agenda, as are the framework for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness, and the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health.

These items support my second observation. We see the success of WHO and its Member States in developing and implementing novel instruments for global health governance.

Let me comment on two.

The negotiations that culminated in the framework for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness were the most difficult and potentially explosive that I have ever witnessed in my 35 years in public health. But the spirit of consensus and fair play eventually won, and we got a square deal for everyone, including the pharmaceutical industry.

This tells us that countries really want risks to be proactively managed. They want rules of proper conduct, with clearly assigned responsibilities, and they want fairness, a square deal for everyone.

The framework for information and accountability is part of a chain of innovative mechanisms and instruments linked to the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health.

The Commission’s sharp, smart, and lean recommendations are now supported by a detailed workplan for translating these recommendations into action. The workplan greatly facilities rapid action, especially to develop systems for vital registration, by identifying existing instruments, methodologies, guidelines, and best practices that can be used immediately or easily modified to fill gaps.

Oversight, which includes identifying the best value-for-money approaches, has been assigned to an independent Expert Review Group. The Group was established in September of last year and held its first meeting two months later.

With these developments, public health breaks new ground by tackling a long-standing need. That is: to build national capacity to generate and analyse basic health data.

Without information, at country level, we can never have accountability. Without information, we can never know what a “best” or a “wise” investment really means. Without information, we are working in the dark, pouring money into a black hole.

This is totally unacceptable at a time when every dollar counts, and both donors and recipients must be held accountable…”