Mr Chairman,
Members of the Executive Board,
The Director-General,
Colleagues
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is an honour for me and for my country - Angola to be appointed Regional Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Africa. I would like to thank the African Union for its full support to my candidacy to this post.
I also want to thank the Governments of all the 46 Member States of WHO in the African region in particular the Ministers of Health for their overwhelming expression of confidence during the elections that took place in Rwanda, at the occasion of the 59th Session of the Regional Committee. It is also my pleasure to thank the Executive Board members for adopting the Resolution concerning my appointment. Of course, I should at this occasion recognize the very professional and constructive support that I obtained from the Director-General Dr Margaret Chan and my colleagues the Regional Directors and other members of WHO Secretariat.
Despite some progress made in improving the health situation in Africa, Maternal Mortality, Child Mortality, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Neglected Tropical Diseases, Epidemics and the emerging burden of chronic diseases are still hitting very hard particularly the poorest segments of the population in Africa. Limited access to quality health care and other social determinants of health is still a critical issue for which we need a more equitable management of resources at all levels. Towards this endeavour, primary health care remains the underpinning approach.
I want to reiterate my commitment to the WHO Constitution and work consistently within the framework of the WHO General Programme of Work focusing on the core functions of WHO. But I would like to put particular emphasis on the health situation analysis and trends to provide required evidence for the best policy options; the development and enforcement of WHO norms and standards; the promotion of health research and the technical support to Member States.
With regards to strategic directions that will guide the activities of WHO Secretariat in the region, I want to say that we will be doing our best to support the efforts to achieve the health Millennium Development Goals. We are conscious of the current state of progress in the African region but we are hopeful because some countries are making significant progress and we should build on the positive developments. We shall focus on monitoring the progress, advocacy for the best policy options and provide technical support for implementation of priority health programmes and related interventions.
The Country Cooperation Strategies (CCS), recently updated with all the 46 Member-States in the African Region, will guide WHO action at country level, and with the support of all the levels of the Organization. We also think that this is a tool that should facilitate the improvement of our collaboration with other International Health Partners, in particular within the UN system.
I have concerns with the limited budget capacity to support Member-States in the areas of: Health Systems Management, Health Information Systems (HIS), Non Communicable Diseases, Maternal Health and Neglected tropical Diseases.
I believe that if WHO funding was more flexible and predictable, we could address health issues in a more holistic manner using systems approach and providing a more efficient support to Member States.
The current dialogue between WHO, Member States and other health partners seems promising. We have already quite positive developments out of the Paris Declaration and the Accra Call of Action that provides guidance to improve the harmonisation amongst the international health partners and a more coordinated support to countries. We will keep very much open to participate in this dialogue to be more efficient and more effective in our role within the international health cooperation.
Together with my colleagues, I will do my best to improve the performance of WHO and the impact of its work on lives of people in the Member States of the African region. And again I would like to thank you very much for your confidence.