Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to everyone joining us from around the world.
It is a great pleasure to welcome you to this first annual general meeting of the WHO Civil Society Commission.
I thank our co-chairs, Lisa Hilmi and Ravi Ram, and the members of the Steering Committee for sharing their time and expertise.
They have worked very hard to finalize the proposed workplan and working groups.
Your input during our meeting in December and the results from the CSO Commission member survey show your clear commitment to working with us to strengthen our engagement with civil society, to serve the needs of communities around the world.
I also thank you for your contributions to the development of the 14th General Programme of Work.
This is the first time WHO’s strategic plan has been co-developed with WHO’s partners. You have played an important role in bringing the voices of communities into that process.
Strengthening WHO’s work with civil society has been a key priority for WHO, as part of the transformation we have been making since I began as Director-General in 2017.
Traditionally, WHO has been “shy by design” and too risk averse in the way we interact with non-state actors, including civil society.
But the fact is, WHO and our Member States simply cannot achieve our goals to progress towards universal health coverage, address health emergencies, and promote healthier populations, without the active engagement and participation of civil society.
Some of the ways we have strengthened our engagement with civil society are the WHO Civil Society Task Force for Tuberculosis, the WHO Advisory Group of Women Living with HIV, the WHO Civil Society Working Group on Noncommunicable Diseases, and other ways to engage with civil society on specific health issues.
I also want to hear directly from you on your challenges and proposals and hold dialogues with civil society on different topics which have included long COVID, healthy ageing, sexual and reproductive health, traditional medicine, climate change, sustainable financing and more.
To better engage with young people we have also established a Youth Council.
We have come a long way, but we are still at the beginning of the journey.
We recognise that we must make engagement with civil society more systematic and sustainable across the three levels of WHO and establish ways to listen to the voices of the communities that WHO serves.
One of the most important lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic is that civil society organizations play a vital role in supporting the communities they represent to protect and promote their own health, based on reliable information.
That’s especially true of the pandemic agreement that WHO’s Member States are negotiating as we speak.
As you know, just as the response to the COVID-19 pandemic was hampered by mis- and disinformation, so are the negotiations on the pandemic agreement.
I’m sure you are aware of some of the lies being spread about the agreement: that it’s a power grab by WHO that will cede national sovereignty to WHO and give it the power to impose lockdowns or vaccine mandates on countries.
These claims are completely false.
In fact, the draft agreement says explicitly – in Article 24, paragraph 3 – that the pandemic agreement will not give WHO any power to dictate or change the laws or policies of any country, nor to impose vaccine mandates or lockdowns.
We cannot allow this historic agreement to be sabotaged by those who spread lies, either knowingly or unknowingly.
We need your help, both to advocate for the agreement, and to counter the mis- and disinformation against it – especially in the communities you represent.
If that happens, we may lose the opportunity to put in place an agreement to protect future generations from the impact of pandemics.
We will see the same inequities, the same lack of coordination, the same preventable loss of lives and livelihoods, and the same social, economic and political upheaval as we saw with COVID-19.
We cannot allow the cycle of panic and neglect to repeat.
Thank you all once again for your commitment to joining this journey with us, and guiding us on how we can engage more effectively with civil society.
Together, we can make real improvements in how WHO identifies and addresses global health challenges, now and in the future, to better serve communities around the world.
Thank you, and I wish you a very productive meeting.