Excellencies, Honourable Ministers,
Our Chair, Dr Aspect Maunganidze,
Members of the PBAC, Member States, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning and welcome once again.
Thank you all for your continuing commitment to the work of WHO through this committee.
Just yesterday I returned from Spain, where I was working with Minister Monica Garcia Gomez and other ministers on the disembarkation and repatriation of passengers and crew aboard the MV Hondius.
As Spain is a PBAC member, and as we are honoured to be joined by Ambassador Martinez, I would like to place on record my thanks to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Minister Gomez, and the government of Spain for their outstanding leadership and partnership over the past week. Muchas gracias.
By the way, I learned a word, “vamos vamos” because they needed to complete on time, and they did, and that was the most frequent word they were using: “vamos vamos”.
Not only did Spain fulfil its legal duty under the International Health Regulations, but it also met its moral duty to show kindness and compassion to the passengers and crew on the ship.
If there’s one thing our divided world needs right now, it’s kindness and compassion.
I would also like to thank the people of Tenerife for their support and solidarity throughout this period, and the European Union for its support.
But of course, many other countries have been involved.
I also thank South Africa, which was the first to confirm hantavirus at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, after the first patient was evacuated there.
I thank the United Kingdom for notifying WHO and all countries through the IHR.
I thank Cabo Verde for helping with the evacuation of the three symptomatic patients.
I thank the Netherlands, which has been actively involved through every stage of the outbreak, and has received the evacuees from the ship.
And as Poland is also a PBAC member, I would also like to acknowledge the leadership of the Polish captain of the ship, Captain Jan Dobrogowski.
I have been in regular contact with Captain Jan over the past week, and I would like to thank him and his crew for everything they have done to keep the passengers safe in a very difficult situation.
The ship is now sailing for the Netherlands with the crew, and one of the first messages I received this morning was from Captain Dobrogowski. It said, “Good morning dear Tedros. I am happy to report that so far we don’t have any symptoms onboard.” He has been doing that every morning, by the way.
The passengers have now all been repatriated and will be monitored until the quarantine period ends, on the 21st of June.
But that doesn’t mean the danger is over. In fact, it has entered a new phase as the passengers and crew return home.
WHO’s advice is that they should be monitored actively at a specified quarantine facility or at home for 42 days from the last exposure, which is the 10th of May, meaning the quarantine period will end on the 21st of June.
Anyone who becomes symptomatic should be isolated and treated immediately.
WHO will continue to work closely with experts in all affected countries.
We ask all countries to report regularly to WHO on the health and well-being of passengers and crew through the International Health Regulations.
I would also like to acknowledge the incredible efforts of all of my WHO colleagues, including Freddy Banza, who boarded the ship in Cabo Verde and stayed there until the disembarkation was complete in Tenerife, monitoring the health of the passengers and crew, and ensuring they were kept safe.
The work of this committee may seem far removed from the operational response to an emergency on a ship at sea, but it is very much connected.
The work that you do here in monitoring and managing WHO’s Programme Budget, finances, human resources and more are what underpins the technical and operational work of the Organization.
PBAC may not make headlines, but its work is vital.
When we last met in January, I described the massive process of prioritization and realignment that we have been undertaking over the past 16 months.
That process is now complete. We have reached a position of stability and we are moving forward.
We have aligned our structures, capacities and resources with agreed strategic priorities that you, our Member States, identified.
As you have seen in our report, we have used five categories to re-align our work with those priorities: protect and enhance the core; scale down and stop; consolidate; collaborate; and digitize.
I’m also pleased to say that our financial situation has become more stable, although risks remain.
We now project that we will be 90% funded for the base budget for the current biennium.
On one level, we are in a better financial position than ever before at this stage of a biennium.
However, we recognize that in the current environment, closing that gap will not be easy.
The financial landscape remains uncertain.
The coming months and years require careful prioritization of expenditure, and a cautious, disciplined approach to financial management, as we have been doing.
And because the majority of voluntary contributions remain earmarked, we continue to see pockets of poverty in many areas of our work.
But we are on the right track.
The finance reforms that we undertook as part of the WHO Transformation helped to mitigate the impact of the funding cuts we faced last year, and are making the Organization more stable and resilient.
When we started the WHO Transformation in 2017, we recognized WHO’s over-reliance on voluntary contributions from a handful of donors as a major risk, and we took steps to mitigate that risk.
It’s therefore essential that Member States continue to fulfil their commitment to sustainable financing by approving the remaining three increases in assessed contributions, in 2027, 2029 and 2031, while expressing my gratitude for the increases you already approved in May 2023 and May 2025.
This is a long-term project that began in 2017 and will culminate in 2031 – which demonstrates that systemic problems can’t be solved in a year or two.
Once those increases are approved, the Organization will reach a state of equilibrium that ensures its long-term stability and independence. It can prevent shocks like now and ensure independence when the donor base is as broad as possible.
A sustainably financed WHO is essential for promoting, providing and protecting health, including by coordinating the international response to events like the hantavirus outbreak.
Just as we ask Member States to fulfil your commitments, the Secretariat is continuing to fulfil its commitments to transparency, accountability and to delivering results.
The Member State portal, the Programme Budget web portal, the investigations portal and the Programme Budget indicators, are all designed to give Member States the information you want, in real time – ensuring transparency.
I believe that over time the Organization can operate with a leaner and more focused footprint.
That means that through natural attrition, we can further reduce operating costs, while continually aligning our workforce with WHO’s core mandate and comparative advantage: normative leadership, health security and convening power.
This will also require stepping back from work that others are better placed to perform.
It means evolving to meet the changing needs of the countries and people we serve.
And it means modernizing the way we work by consolidating functions and making better use of AI, digital technologies and other innovations.
But as PBAC emphasized in January, it is not enough for WHO alone to reform – the entire global health architecture is in need of renovation.
In February, the Executive Board mandated the Secretariat with developing – with Member States and partners – a proposal for a joint, WHO-hosted process on reform of the global health architecture.
Over the past three months, the Secretariat has been hard at work, through consultations and briefings with Member States, partners and non-state actors to develop that proposal.
I believe that the consultative, engaging and inclusive process we have taken to get to this point already demonstrates that the global health architecture can evolve quickly in response to the collective will and direction of Member States.
We look forward to your advice in advance of the World Health Assembly’s consideration of this proposal.
Thank you all once again for your commitment and support for the work of this committee, and in turn for the work of WHO and its mission: the highest attainable standard of health, not as a luxury for some, but a right for all.
I thank you. Chair, back to you.