- Excellency, Hon. Minister Budi Gunadi
- Governor of Jakarta Mr. Heru Hartono
- Mayor of Surabaya City, Mr. Eric Cahyadi
- Distinguished representatives from all our Member States
- Senior advisors and experts
- Partners, colleagues & friends
Good morning to you all. I trust everyone is having a fruitful and productive workshop thus far?
Two days ago, in my opening remarks, I said that strengthening PHC-orientation of health systems directly aligns with our WHO South-East Asia Regional Roadmap for Strengthening Results and Resilience. Today, I would like to expand on those remarks.
My vision for our Region is simple: “A Region where people have access to quality healthcare, regardless of where they live, and regardless of their income or social status”. I would like us to be a region which takes a holistic approach to health and well-being; where people are empowered - both physically and mentally - to achieve their full potential. I would like to shape a region which cares for all, and strengthens and protects the most vulnerable who live in it
The challenge for us is to identify concrete steps to achieve this vision.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Unfortunately, we are not on-track to achieve SDG 3 - “Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages.” As you are all aware, we face new challenges, which require a new approach and new ideas. Doing more of the same will not deliver the results we want.
As our Regional Roadmap points out, targets, policies and guidelines alone are insufficient. They must be accompanied by action, accountability and capacity.
Therefore, the Regional Roadmap proposes five tactical shifts. I am pleased to see that these have been evident in the content and modality of this workshop.
The first tactical shift is to a Holistic and comprehensive approach which prioritizes a broad span of health services. It addresses social, economic and environmental determinants of health. This is needed to address fragmentation in our health systems, as well as the imbalanced focus on curative care. I appreciate this workshop’s focus on practical approaches to integration, and particularly the range of operational examples demonstrated and discussed on Day 1.
The second shift is a prioritization of Equity. The Regional Roadmap calls for prioritization of those most vulnerable and marginalized – with not only access to health services, but to quality health services. Your discussions, examples, and insights shared yesterday are of great value. I urge you to continue to build upon these examples and support their translation to quality health services across our region.
The third tactical shift is Innovation. Innovation is a strength of the people and communities of our region. There is great potential to leverage advancements in technology, policy, and the practices of local solutions, to address local priorities and realities. I am very heartened to see the openness to learning from those who are testing new approaches on the ground – learning from both success and failure.
The fourth tactical shift is Sustainability. The Regional Roadmap stresses that capacity building and associated knowledge management are at the core of sustainable health systems. This is especially important when we speak of Primary Health Care, where knowledge often exists far from centers of policy and research. The examples of the SE Asia Regional PHC Forum, and the Indonesia National PHC Consortium (which you will see later today), are noteworthy. They speak to the importance of collectively gathering, creating, sharing and applying knowledge within and across our health systems.
Finally, the 5th tactical shift is WHO’s role as an Enabler. Central to this is mobilizing partnerships across governments, development, philanthropic, implementation, academic, private and civil society actors. The challenge of advancing quality integrated primary health care is substantial in our region of over 2 billion people. It is only through your collective - our collective - that we can advance our shared vision and goals.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
These five tactical shifts are necessary, but not easy.
In particular, I would like to commend the leadership of H.E. Minister Budi and the government of Indonesia. They have placed National PHC Integration - accompanied with necessary regulatory and financing reforms - at the heart of Indonesia’s Health System Transformation.
“Pak Mantri” Budi, the strong participation at this workshop shows the desire to learn from what is happening, under your leadership, here in Indonesia. On behalf of participants from across our region, I thank you for allowing us this opportunity to learn from you, and hopefully to also contribute to health system transformation in Indonesia.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks two days ago, the modern PHC movement, in many ways, was initiated in Bandung, Indonesia. Almost a hundred years later, we are called to gather to make quality integrated PHC a reality for the people of our Region. Thus, we must shift focus from diseases to - in the words of one of WHO’s founders Dr. Karl Evang - the “human being – the working, creating, hoping and struggling human being”.
Twenty years from now, may we look back at this very gathering, and say we succeeded in our mission.
Thank you.