WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the 34rd meeting of the Programme, Budget and Administration Committee of the Executive Board
PR Newswire
GENEVA, 19 May 2021
GENEVA, 19 May 2021 / PRN Africa / — Your Excellency Dr Faical Ben Salah, Director General of Health of Tunisia and Chair of PBAC,
Excellencies, distinguished colleagues and friends,
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, and welcome to you all.
As you know, we are meeting on the eve of what is arguably one of the most important World Health Assemblies in this Organization’s history.
The pandemic has changed our world in ways none of us could have imagined.
And it has demonstrated that the world needs a strong WHO.
Since it was established 16 years ago, this committee has played a vital role in the strong functioning of our Organization, and that is even more true now.
Although WHO has been fully focused on coordinating and supporting the response to the pandemic over the past 17 months, we have continued to execute most of our existing workplans on each of WHO’s “triple billion” targets.
In fact, we have done what we set out to do in the programme budget, with a projected implementation of over 80%.
I am very proud of our dedicated, hard-working staff, who have exceeded all expectations.
Even with all of these accomplishments, predictable and sustainable funding remains one of the most pressing challenges for our Organization.
Member States themselves have recognised this by setting up the Intergovernmental Working Group on Sustainable Financing.
Currently, only 16% of our funds come through assessed contributions.
Adjusted for inflation, assessed contributions today are US$340 million less than they were in 1980. About 80% of funds are earmarked.
This is a problem that goes back decades. But the end result is the same: our financing structure is no longer fit for purpose, especially while the expectations of WHO keep increasing.
How does this financial uncertainty affect our work?
It means we cannot do the long-term programming at the country level that major health challenges require.
It means that we have an over-reliance on consultants and temporary contracts, which destabilizes our workforce and makes it difficult to retain experts.
It means we often have to go searching for new funding for emergency response, or draw on our limited reserves.
Although last year’s Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID-19 was generously supported by donors, we are still almost US$1 billion short for this year’s SPRP, and only half of the money pledged has been received.
WHO needs sustainable financing that supports the Programme Budget and allows us to plan across the duration of a General Programme of Work.
We seek the continued support of PBAC for the work of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Sustainable Financing. This remains one of the fundamental challenges facing this institution.
Predictable and sustained financing is one of the fundamental issues we identified at the beginning of my term, and is also a common theme in all of the recent reviews of WHO.
And we have already made significant progress.
In the past 3 years, we published the first WHO Investment Case, launched the partners forum and the new global resource mobilization strategy, and we are diversifying our donor base through innovations like the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and the WHO Foundation.
Sustainable and predictable funding is one of seven areas in which we have been working for almost four years to make WHO a modern, agile, impact-focused organization, through the WHO Transformation.
The Transformation is anchored in 40 core initiatives that are designed to enable a more agile, results-focused WHO, which you can track with our new Transformation Monitoring tool.
The pandemic has been a stress-test for Transformation.
When the crisis hit, our reconfigured business, partnership and external relations functions were immediately tasked to operate at scale.
Our new Science Division established a fast-track review mechanism to ensure the timeliness, coherence and quality of all WHO guidance.
The new WHO Emergency Preparedness and Response divisions have supported pandemic efforts around the world, including, under this new operating model, by co-leading the Supply Chain Task Force.
Working across the UN family, this Task Force has coordinated the procurement and delivery of more than 1.2 billion US dollars of essential supplies.
Through the Solidarity Trial, we ran one of the largest and most diverse clinical trials, to generate robust data on therapeutics.
And as part of our more expansive approach to partnerships, we established the ACT Accelerator, which has distributed 60 million doses of vaccines to over 120 countries, procured supplies of dexamethasone for more than 4.5 million patients, delivered more than 120 million rapid diagnostic tests to low and middle-income countries and shipped over US$500 million of PPE.
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At the World Health Assembly, Member States will receive the recommendations of multiple panels and committees which have reviewed different aspects of WHO’s work:
The external Evaluation of the Transformation Agenda;
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response;
The Review Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations;
The Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme;
And the interim report of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Sustainable Financing.
To avoid pre-empting these recommendations, we have developed a flexible Programme Budget for the next biennium.
We will update the budget pending the outcome of discussions with Member States on the recommendations of the various review panels.
The current budget is built around four key strategic themes:
First, the need to strengthen national capacities for emergency preparedness and response;
Second, the need to build resilience through stronger primary health care, as the foundation of both health security and universal health coverage;
Third, the need to advance WHO’s leadership in science and data;
And fourth, the urgent need to accelerate progress towards the “triple billion” targets and the Sustainable Development Goals.
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As you know, there have been new reports in the media about allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse linked to WHO’s Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The behaviour described in these reports is a shocking betrayal of trust of the people we serve, many of whom are women in vulnerable situations.
Earlier this month, Member States were briefed by the Independent Commission we have established to investigate these allegations with the support of an independent firm.
As you know, WHO has established an Independent Commission to investigate these allegations, co-chaired by Her Excellency Aïchatou Mindaoudou, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Social Development of Niger, and Julienne Lusenge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an internationally recognized human rights activist and advocate for survivors of sexual violence in conflict.
The co-chairs have appointed three other members of the commission:
First, Dikéré Marie Christine Bocoum from Côte d’Ivoire, a retired UN staff member with extensive experience in community development, humanitarian protection and activities in conflict and post-conflict situations and experience in working with the African Union.
Second, Carole Doucet, from Canada, who has extensive experience in women’s rights, gender equality, sexual exploitation and abuse, human rights, reconstruction and peace building, institutional capacity development, conflict prevention and mediation, ethics, conduct and discipline.
And third, Malick Coulibaly, the Former Minister of Justice and former President of the National Human Rights Commission of Mali, who has expertise in human rights, justice reform, and justice and development.
The Commission is supported by JRR, Justice Rapid Response, an external firm hired through a request for proposals to conduct outreach and fact-finding inquiries, that was selected by the commission.
The first mission of JRR started on 1 May, composed of experts covering a broad range of areas from investigation to psychosocial support for victims. The second mission is likely to be at the end of June or early July.
We appointed the commission because we wanted the most rigorous and independent investigation possible.
We hope this approach will help us not only to address the specific allegations that have been made, but to identify and rectify any systemic weaknesses that allow sexual exploitation and abuse to happen.
I give Member States my personal assurance that we will act decisively on the commission’s findings.
Already we have taken several steps to strengthen our policies and procedures, in line with the UN system and other best practices:
We are embedding dedicated focal points for the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse in all of our field operations;
We are strengthening community engagement, and putting in place mechanisms for reporting and investigating allegations and protecting those we serve;
We are taking a survivor-centred approach in the deployment of personnel, and will take prompt and robust action in all cases where WHO staff are found to have engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse, including collaborating with relevant national authorities on criminal proceedings;
We have implemented a new policy on Preventing and Addressing Abusive Conduct, and we are strengthening awareness and training programmes targeting everyone who works for or with WHO.
Once again, we are committed to taking whatever measures are needed to protect the people we serve.
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In that same spirit of accountability, I would like to draw your attention to the new mid-term Results Report, our first to show progress against the 13th General Programme of Work.
This dynamic report contains a wealth of easily accessible information on the whole results framework, with outputs and outcomes for our “triple billion” targets, including 77 case studies showing country impact.
This is a new way of reporting to strengthen our accountability for results.
We look forward to your feedback and suggestions.
Thank you once again for your commitment and support. I look forward to our work together over the next few days.
I thank you.
SOURCE World Health Organization (WHO)