His Excellency, the Hon’ble Minister of Health of the Republic of Indonesia, Mr Budi G. Sadikin; Excellencies from ASEAN countries; ASEAN Deputy Secretary General and members of the ASEAN Secretariat; Regional Director of the WHO Western Pacific Region, Dr Takeshi Kasai; partners, delegates, colleagues,
It is a privilege to address you today, on a subject of critical and lasting importance: how together we can build regional health system resilience and accelerate the COVID-19 recovery.
It is often said: Universal health coverage (UHC) and health security are two sides of the same coin – that achieving each goal is dependent on synergistic and overlapping actions that strengthen health system resilience and ensure all people can access essential health services, including in emergencies, without financial hardship.
This is – as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown – evidently true.
In the South-East Asia Region, we have observed that countries with strong primary health care-oriented health systems have been better able to respond to the pandemic, rapidly mount public health actions, and maintain essential services with minimal disruption.
This tracks with evolving global evidence, which shows that countries that had made limited progress on UHC and health security before the pandemic have been generally less able to repurpose their capacities to respond, while at the same time maintaining essential health services.
The critical lesson from the last two years – the lesson emphasized by the Hon’ble Minister of Health of Indonesia – is the need for all countries, whatever their income or development status, to invest in resilient health systems that can effectively prevent, prepare for, detect, adapt to, respond to and recover from public health threats, while maintaining quality essential and routine health services.
In an environment of immense fiscal stress, we must ask: How best we can achieve this outcome in the most cost-effective, efficient and equitable manner?
In the WHO South-East Asia Region, Member States have given a clear and definitive answer: by reorienting health systems towards strong primary health care (PHC).
This Region-wide approach is reflected in a landmark resolution on COVID-19 and measures to build back better essential health services to achieve UHC and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals, adopted at the Seventy-fourth session of the Regional Committee.
It is embedded in the Region’s new Strategy for Primary Health Care and its forthcoming Regional Roadmap for Strengthening Health Security, and was a key point of consensus at a series of WHO-coordinated meetings with technical experts and Member State representatives on lessons learned from the pandemic.
Health system resilience is also a feature of the UN-ASEAN Joint Strategic Plan of Action on Disaster Management 2021–2025, which is especially significant given the Plan’s focus on the increasing number and nature of disaster events brought about by the climate crisis – a focus that is well aligned with the theme of this year’s World Health Day: “Our planet, our health”.
Moving forward, it is imperative that countries mobilize and prioritize counter-cyclical funding for health systems, ensuring that potential growth dividends – estimated by the Asian Development Bank to be 1.5% annually based on a 5% GDP allocation – are fully realized.
Excellencies,
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated not only the interconnectedness of our biology, but of the systems we rely on to stay healthy and well, and which support social and economic development.
Gaps in the health system of one country leave gaps in the health security of all countries.
I commend the ASEAN Health Sector’s longstanding commitment to build not just national but regional health system resilience – the focus of today’s discussions.
We appreciate the tremendous contributions throughout the pandemic of existing ASEAN mechanisms, from the ASEAN Emergency Operations Centre Network for Public Health Emergencies, to the ASEAN Plus Three Field Epidemiology Training Network.
We support ASEAN’s shared vision of strengthening regional and global cooperation to accelerate towards a robust, sustainable, comprehensive, and resilient recovery.
We encourage all ASEAN partners to continue to support the ASEAN Health Sector’s efforts to forge ahead, together, towards a healthy, caring and sustainable ASEAN Community, including through the ASEAN Centre for Public Health Emergencies and Emerging Diseases initiative, which is to be hosted jointly by Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam.
I once again thank the Hon’ble Minister and Government of the Republic of Indonesia for hosting this 15th ASEAN Health Ministers Meeting, and I look forward to our onward journey together, towards an ASEAN region in which all countries secure sustainable health financing and human resources for health, promote robust use of digital technology, implement strong surveillance and mitigation strategies, and most of all, strengthen health systems to achieve UHC, health security and health for all.
Thank you.