WHO Director-General’s remarks at the Working session on health at the G20 Summit

15 November 2022

Excellencies,

I thank Your Excellency and the Government of Indonesia for your leadership in a very challenging year, and for giving health a prominent place on the G20 agenda. We look forward to that continuing under future presidencies.

Because as the pandemic has shown, when health is at risk, everything is at risk.

The most severe health crisis in a century has taken 6 million lives and trillions of dollars in severely disrupted trade, tourism, business, education, geopolitics and much more.

We have come a very long way in our collective fight against COVID-19, but the pandemic is not yet behind us. WHO continues to urge all countries to remain vigilant.

As the world recovers, let me suggest three priorities for building a healthier safer, fairer and more prosperous world.

First, promote health.

Healthy and productive populations are not created in hospitals or clinics, but in homes, streets, schools, workplaces, supermarkets and communities.

We therefore urge all countries to make a paradigm shift towards promoting health and well-being and preventing disease by addressing its root causes, in the food people eat, the water they drink, the air they breathe, and the conditions in which they live and work.

The second priority is to provide health.

That means reorienting health systems towards primary health care, which can deliver 90% of essential health services.

And it means investing to create at least 10 million more jobs for health and care workers in low-and middle-income countries.

The third priority is to protect health.

WHO has made 10 key proposals for an enhanced architecture for global health security, with stronger governance, stronger financing, stronger systems and tools, and a stronger WHO at its centre.

The G20 is playing an important role in driving forward several of these proposals. The new Pandemic Fund, which we launched here in Bali on Sunday, is one good example, and congratulations.

We appreciate the commitment of G20 countries to ensure the fund is adequately capitalised with additional financing.

I would also like to ask two things: one is your support for the pandemic accord; and second is not only for vaccines, we also need your support for an IP waiver for diagnostics and therapeutics.

Healthy populations are the foundation for healthy economies.

Promote health. Provide health. Protect health.

I thank you. Terima kasih.

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