Honorable Cabinet Secretary of Health in Kenya, Dr Cleopa Mailu
Honorable Ministers present
Dr Githinji Gitahi, CEO of Amref
Mr David Pritchard, Vice President of GSK Africa and Developing Countries of Asia
Distinguished scholars and partners
Ladies and gentlemen
• We are 165 months away from the deadline of delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals.
• Some of you may think that’s a long way away.
• For the researchers, policy makers and implementers among you, you’ll know that the scope and scale of the goals will consume your hours, days, weeks and months - and the time for us to account will be upon us in no time at all.
• There is so much to do. That’s why this conference on Africa’s health agenda is so timely.
• Knowledge generation – research, data collection and monitoring and its use - must be at the core of country actions.
• Research should be the cornerstone of our SDG actions to provide the evidence for improving the health status of the people.
• Health is not just a goal of the SDGs.
• It is a prerequisite, determinant and outcome of all the SDGs, a common thread linking them together.
• The social determinants of health – such as poverty, inequity, gender vulnerabilities, lack of education, geography – and access to affordable, quality health care under the umbrella of Universal Health Coverage – underpin all the SDGs.
• This framing – that health is at the heart of the SDGs – needs all of us to ensure that health stays at the forefront of the political and development agenda, while it infuses with other social determinants.
• We see what happens with this infusion: for example, when adolescent girls are educated, they are more likely to marry later and be less at risk for maternal mortality, and their children are likely to have healthier lives too.
• The Millennium Development Goals helped to enable more girls to attend school than ever before, and maternal mortality rates dropped by 45% worldwide.
• The MDGs showed what could be done with ambitious targets.
• But we would be foolish not to learn from our mistakes as we continue the momentum towards the SDGs.
• From the Millennium Development Goals we learned that investments in health by governments and health partners has not been optimal.
• Health services in many countries are grossly underfunded, leading to sub-standard quality of care.
• Healthcare is often inaccessible geographically and financially, disadvantaging poorer and marginalized populations.
• There are huge opportunities in several international initiatives that aim to improve health infrastructure through building hospitals in African countries
• To optimize these investments, they must be rationally targeted in line with the principles of primary health care, and increase access to essential, good quality care where people live, backed up by referral services for those who need them.
• State-of-the-art hospitals on their own will not solve access problems and are therefore not a best buy for countries.
• Inequities in access are compounded by a critical shortage of human resources for health in Africa, which are unequally distributed and biased towards urban areas.
• The African Region has 24% of the global disease burden, but only 3% of the global health work force.
• This has to change. As we embark on the SDGs, good governance, leadership and stewardship must ensure that the right and comprehensive policies and strategies are in place and implemented if we hope to reach our SDG targets.
• Multisectoral action and forming new collaborations is critical. The engagement of civil society - as well as the private sector- is fundamental to the success of our SDG actions.
• This will require political will and our collective, long-term effort to stay on track.
• I’m pleased that this conference has attracted such a diverse audience of researchers and scholars, industry leaders, civil society advocates for health.
• I firmly believe that this unity in diversity will be very positive for the SDGs.
• If we pool our expertise, we can innovate and create solutions which we might not have dreamed were possible.
• WHO’s Regional Office for Africa is innovating and taking a new road to bring better health to Africa’s people.
• We are introducing sweeping changes to the way we do our work through an innovation we call our Transformation Agenda.
• This is steering us to have values that promote results – what we call pro-results values - such as excellence, accountability and transparency, equity and innovation.
• We have introduced Key Performance Indicators at both managerial and technical levels, setting clear priorities and our contribution to achieving UHC and the SDGs and we now started independent evaluations of our work.
• We are therefore adjusting our programmes to have a smart technical focus in line with the Region’s priorities, basing interventions on evidence and lessons learned from experience.
• For instance, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa revealed critical gaps in our emergency preparedness. An effective Ebola vaccine was needed urgently.
• We – together with the Ministry of Health in Guinea and international partners - led Ebola vaccine research during the epidemic which resulted in a safe and highly protective vaccine, the first to prevent infection, and an addition to our defences against future outbreaks.
• The devastating Ebola outbreak led to the emergence of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a public-private coalition that aims to derail epidemics by speeding up development of vaccines against emerging pathogens.
• They will use our platform, the African Vaccines Regulatory Forum, for the ethics and regulatory oversight of clinical trials of these emerging pathogens.
• The recent outbreaks of yellow fever also led to the innovative use of fractional doses of the vaccine in the face of inadequate supplies, effectively stopping the outbreaks .
• Studies are ongoing to collect data from a subset of people vaccinated to learn more about the efficacy lifespan of yellow fever fractional doses.
• We have now reformed our Health Emergencies Programme and are part of a global WHO approach of one emergency programme, one workforce, one budget and one line of accountability.
• We have, with partners, carried out a number of Joint External Evaluations (JEEs) with countries, to determine the gaps in our collective preparedness and build our core IHR capacities
• We are transforming our operations, putting people in places for strategic purposes, such as with our Health Emergencies Programme, where 113 long-term posts have been created.
• We have also boosted our health systems focus with strengthened teams and new posts in each sub-regional area to build sustained foundations for health.
• This will enhance our responsiveness and make sure that not only can we can hit the road running when we have an emergency, but that we can anticipate and mitigate the risks.
• We are expanding our partnerships to embrace new ones such as African leaders, religious leaders, the private sector and philanthropic foundations/individuals.
• One of the objectives of this conference is to share evidence for generating “home-grown” solutions to health problems facing Africa in its pursuit of realizing the SDGs. I’d like to fill you in on some of WHO’s recent innovations in this area.
• Countries were overwhelmed with the enormity of the health SDGs, and needed guidance on how to proceed.
• In December, we hosted the first Regional Forum on Strengthening Health Systems for achieving Universal Health Coverage.
• This meeting has resulted in an action framework and mechanisms for monitoring progress and guiding investments towards attaining UHC.
• We plan for this to be a regular event for the technical leaders of the health sectors to learn and share lessons from each other, but also use peer reviews to build robust health systems in the African Region.
• A further innovation is our approach to use adolescent health as a flagship programme to monitor UHC progress.
• Adolescents in Africa were a previously neglected population group, with deteriorating lives and prospects that must now be converted into a positive demographic dividend for our region..
• The African Region is the only region in the world where the number of adolescents is predicted to increase over the next 50 years.
• In Nigeria, young people rule in the population stakes. The median age of the population of 190-million is 18.
• Adolescents and young people are our best chance to achieve radical change for a sustainable, healthy and prosperous Region.
• The adolescents of today are the policy makers of 2030 – that’s in about 165 months.
• To enhance our advocacy for UHC and the SDGs, WHO in Africa is planning its first Africa Health Forum, to be held on 27 – 28 June in Kigali, Rwanda.
• The theme is Putting People First: The Road to Universal Health Coverage in Africa, covering health security, progress on equity and UHC, the unfinished MDGs and the new SDG targets, and the social determinants of health.
• I mentioned earlier that we are embracing new partnerships. This new forum will give us a chance to consult with a wide range of stakeholders on our strategic plans and how we can develop joint programmes of work.
• It will be an opportunity to continue the deliberations of this great conference, as we take forward some of the reflections, findings and future directions of our SDG actions.
• I hope to see you there!
• I am convinced that, working together, harnessing our collective vision, energy and unique expertise, and applying our knowledge, we can transform the health status of African people, through systems that prevent disease, promote good health and provide care in equitable, affordable and sustainable ways.
Thank you.