Honourable Minister of Health and Medical Services, Dr Charles Sigoto;
Honourable ministers of the Pacific island countries;
Director-General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Dr Colin Tukuitonga;
Distinguished participants and development partners;
Ladies and gentlemen:
Thank you for your warm welcome. It's good to be back in the Pacific.
To begin, I would like to express sincere appreciation on behalf of WHO – and I'm sure everyone here – to the Government of Solomon Islands for hosting this forum.
Their hospitality is especially impressive when you consider that they are still recovering from flash flooding in April.
Looking around the room, I see many partners who played critical roles in the response to the floods. We worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ministry of Health and other partners.
The experience was one more testament to the strength of our relationship and the quality of our coordination.
This team spirit and warmth of the Pacific people always makes me feel like I'm having a relaxed talk with friends in my living room – even when those friends are health ministers and other important partners and I am at a podium like today.
This is a crucial time for Pacific island communities.
There are urgent challenges in areas ranging from noncommunicable disease and sexual health and well-being to surveillance and outbreak response.
We have been talking and planning how to address many of these challenges for years.
There is a famous line from a poem that says: the best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray.
I like those words because they emphasize that great planning matters only when you execute. Without effective implementation, even the best action plans or regional strategies do not go as planned.
That is why this forum is so important — to focus our efforts on meaningful implementation.
In most cases, we already know what is right to do. We just need to do it right.
Nowhere is this call to action more urgent than to combat noncommunicable diseases that are threatening many of your communities.
The Pacific has some of the highest rates of tobacco use, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the world. In fact, nearly every terrible statistic on the toll of NCDs globally is worse in Pacific island countries and areas.
WHO supported the development of programmes to improve health and well-being in the Pacific. And we will be with your communities every step of the way through implementation of those programmes.
Pacific leaders have declared an NCD crisis and developed plans to reduce NCDs and risk factors in your specific countries. I congratulate you on all your hard work.
I came here today directly from meetings with senior leaders of China, the president of the World Bank and WHO's director-general. We discussed overall health system reform issues, including the urgency of reversing the deadly trend of NCDs.
Everyone — from country leaders to development banks — understands that health issues like NCDs are really development issues.
If they are not dealt with effectively, NCDs have the potential to derail development goals, just like a natural disaster.
I wanted to come here as your ambassador to personally stress this point with finance and economic ministers — that investments in health are really investments in development.
Or more simply, health makes wealth. Healthier populations cost governments less in services, and increase the country's productivity.
Strengthening primary health care at the community level, in particular, is one of the best investments that can be made for the country's overall development.
Better health systems allow us to detect and treat disease early — rather than later at a much higher cost. They also allow us to influence harmful behaviours in young people before they turn into full-blown risk factors for NCDs.
To mobilize the support and resources needed, we must all speak with one voice on this issue. We cannot win the battle against NCDs unless all sectors of society are engaged and contributing.
Before I finish, I would like once again to thank the SPC for organizing this meeting. I would also like to thank the New Zealand Aid Programme for their gracious support.
I look forward to our discussions today. As always, I am eager to see how WHO — together with other development partners — can support Pacific communities in the fight against NCDs and other challenges in the future.
Thank you.