Report of the WHO Regional Director for Europe at the 76th session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe

Madam President, Executive President and Standing Committee Chair, Deputy Executive President, Rapporteur, thank you to Iceland, Croatia and Tajikistan, and to all members of the Thirty-third SCRC, for your invaluable guidance in preparation for this 76th session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe.

Dear Director-General, Dr Tedros, honourable ministers, distinguished delegates, prospective candidates for the position of WHO Director-General, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for your presence and support to the WHO European Region.

I will continue in French, as part of our WHO's commitment to multilingualism.

It is with great pleasure that I address you as Officer-in-Charge of the WHO Regional Office for Europe.

One year ago, in this auditorium, the 53 Member States in our Region rallied around the Second European Programme of Work with a clear vision: to place health and well-being at the heart of public policy, as drivers of economic growth, social progress and sustainability.

This morning, together with my colleagues, I will look back on the key achievements of the past year. These advances were made primarily under the leadership of Dr Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, who is presently on special leave. The strong team spirit and shared sense of purpose that he fostered continue to guide our work. We are moving forward with a shared commitment to delivering on our promise.

I will present four key areas that have shaped our action: transforming our work methods, building trust, technical excellence and partnerships.

The past year has marked a major transition for the Regional Office. We are transforming our work methods and focusing our efforts on the high-impact priorities of EPW2 and the implementation of WHO's Fourteenth General Programme of Work. We remain committed to playing our role as a trusted, evidence-based and politically neutral authority for international health.

As emphasized by the Director-General, these changes have had a profound impact on our staff. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all our colleagues - both those who have left WHO as a result of the reorganization and those who continue to serve.

Our new operational model strengthens the links between our regional expertise and national priorities, through three technical divisions backed by two support divisions and the Regional Director's Office. Our country offices remain critical in assisting Member States and improving people's lives.

Trust, technical excellence and collaboration

Your Excellencies,

In a world marked by uncertainty and growing divisions, security, solidarity, sustainability and trust matter more than ever.

This is why we have launched an Office-wide initiative to strengthen the evidence base, develop practical tools, and help countries reinforce trust in their health systems and health authorities. In Romania, for example, we have trained health promotion officials at the local and regional levels.

Trust was also at the heart of the first event organized in the lead-up to this Regional Committee session, which focused on trust in science, health care systems and health authorities.

Trust also rests on technical excellence, which is the compass of EPW2. In July, we reached an important milestone with the first meeting of WHO/Europe's Scientific Advisory Board.

I will now ask Professor Anna Odone, Chair of the Board, to present its mandate and the outcomes of its first meeting.

Intervention by Professor Anna Odone, Chair of the WHO/Europe Scientific Advisory Board

Colleagues and partners, thank you for the privilege to address you today as Chair of the newly established WHO/Europe Scientific Advisory Board, an independent panel of 12 scientific experts from the Region and beyond, which I'm privileged to chair, working across disciplines at the interface of science, policy and implementation.

Our emerging work programme includes the responsible use of technology and AI, communicating evidence and supporting decisions under uncertainty, strengthening evidence products, and importantly, boosting the real-world impact on policy and practice. Ultimately, our ambition is to help WHO/Europe deliver evidence that Member States trust, use and translate into action.

When evidence is incomplete, evolving or contested, WHO/Europe must remain the trusted regional knowledge hub for population health. On behalf of the Scientific Advisory Board, I do hope we can count on your support. Thank you.

Trust, technical excellence and collaboration (continued), Dr Corinne Capuano

I would like to thank the Board members for their dedication and support for our work.

Against the backdrop of changes in the global health architecture and the UN80 Initiative reform, we are achieving greater efficiency and coherence by combining our areas of expertise rather than duplicating activities.

In Tajikistan, for example, we are working with FAO, UNICEF and WFP to promote healthier food systems.

Technical excellence also relies on strong scientific partnerships.

We have strengthened our partnerships with our 322 collaborating centres, and I would like to congratulate the 53 new centres designated over the past year. We will discuss the contributions of this network during tomorrow evening's briefing.

I would like to give the floor to Ihor Perehinets, who will present our achievements over the past year in the area of health security.

Maximizing health security, Dr Ihor Perehinets, Health Security and Regional Emergency Director

Thank you, Corinne.

What does it take to protect the health of our Region against the threats we face today or may face tomorrow?

It takes sustained investment and coordinated action across four interconnected pillars: prevention, preparedness, detection and assessment, response and recovery.

Recent events demonstrate why these pillars are vital.

From the hantavirus outbreak in May on a cruise ship, to outbreaks of dengue and West Nile virus this summer, to a recent case of pneumonia of unknown etiology, and to the first documented case of a human infection with Shamonda virus.

These all underline the importance of the International Health Regulations, and of timely, transparent information-sharing and coordinated international action to prevent pandemics.

Let me highlight some examples of our joint efforts to strengthen health security across the Region.

First, prevention.

Routine immunization and reliable disease surveillance are essential investments in health security. WHO/Europe has achieved 91% DTP3 (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) vaccination coverage. Measles cases in 2025 dropped by 75% compared to 2024, and HPV vaccination has been introduced in 92% of countries.

Congratulations to Albania and Armenia for achieving the hepatitis B control targets, and to Denmark for being certified for the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis. The Francis Crick Institute's WHO influenza collaborating centre in the United Kingdom is central to global influenza surveillance and vaccine selection.

But important gaps remain: one in five tuberculosis cases is undiagnosed or unreported, drug-resistant TB remains a challenge, every second HIV diagnosis is made too late, and HIV mortality is rising.

Antimicrobial resistance also remains a top global health threat. We have continued to support AMR Accountability Index development, antimicrobial stewardship, and infection prevention and control. We are especially thankful to RIVM in the Netherlands for supporting the CAESAR network which is an essential part of our work in the Region.

Second, our action focuses on emergency preparedness.

Albania and Republic of Moldova completed their second Joint External Evaluations under the IHR. Germany finished a two-in-one Joint External Evaluation/EU Public Health Emergency Preparedness assessment. For the first time, 100% of States Parties in the Region have submitted IHR Annual Reports. I am grateful for these, it shows your commitment to health security.

Croatia, Ireland, Ukraine and Uzbekistan have also invested in national strategic risk assessments, while Albania, Tajikistan and Ukraine are investing in national action plans for health security, and Luxembourg conducted a Universal Health and Preparedness Review contributing to the national resilience strategy.

In Istanbul, ministers and experts from 30 countries across four WHO regions agreed on practical actions to protect health services before, during and after earthquakes. My thanks to Türkiye for hosting the conference and co-organizing it.

WHO is advancing One Health as well, through joint risk assessments for foodborne and zoonotic diseases in Armenia and Azerbaijan and multisectoral workforce planning in the Western Balkans. We are grateful to University College Dublin for helping to build the One Health network and for the next meeting we are organizing in Brussels as the co-chair of the Quadripartite collaboration on One Health.

Climate and health preparedness is equally essential. Cyprus and Ireland have completed their first national strategic risk assessments, helping prioritize preparedness and investment into disaster risk reduction.

Third, we work on early warning, detection and assessment.

Emergencies often begin with a signal: a case report, a news item or a call from a country office. From January to October 2026, WHO/Europe analysed 48 000 pieces of information, 35 of which required an operational response.

WHO is expanding open-source epidemic intelligence through EIOS 2.0, with 13 additional countries and territories joining the European EIOS communities.

New PCR laboratories in Bulgaria are strengthening infectious disease detection. And emergency information management systems are now used in around 80% of target countries.

Partnerships between National IHR Focal Points in Germany and Poland, Estonia and Finland, and Greece and Malta are further strengthening cross-border information-sharing and coordinated actions for emergency management.

Fourth, coordinated action is required for operational readiness and response to emergencies.

There are 38 classified emergency medical teams now in our Region, providing deployable capacity that countries can activate and benefit from during emergency management. Recent milestones include the certification of teams in Belgium, Czechia, Denmark and Ukraine.

The WHO Readiness Toolbox Fair brought together health officials from eight Nordic and Baltic countries, leading to the initiative to strengthen cross-border health sector coordination during emergencies as well.

Poland and Ukraine are strengthening hospital emergency planning, and we are also supporting North Macedonia, Uzbekistan and Romania on mass casualty response planning, evacuation and surge capacity planning.

But the largest and most complex emergency response in our Region remains Ukraine.

The war puts extraordinary pressure on daily life. In addition, 3386 attacks on health since 2022 have destroyed health infrastructure, including WHO warehouses, and limited access to essential health products, as well as forcing communities from their homes.

In 2025, almost 13 million Ukrainians needed humanitarian assistance, including 9.2 million in need of health support provided directly from our Country Office in Ukraine.

Since September 2025, WHO has delivered more than US$ 21 million in medicines, equipment and medical supplies, while training more than 2000 health workers in emergency care and public health security.

Over 5 million Ukrainians have left the country and are supported by many European countries, where WHO has provided technical support to national health authorities to manage the health needs of refugees.

In addition, more than 7000 patients have been medically evacuated for specialized treatment to 22 Member States since 2022, with EU support.

Thank you to the many WHO European Member States for your contribution to the current WHO Humanitarian Appeal, which is now 100% covered for this year.

Ukraine's experience offers lessons on how to maintain essential health services under extreme pressure, coordinate cross-border support and strengthen health security to withstand and recover from emergencies, but resilience is no substitute for peace.

Only peace can secure health.

Thank you and now over to Kremlin.

Driving climate health action, Dr Kremlin Wickramasinghe, Director of the Division of Prevention and Health Promotion

Thank you, Ihor.

Honourable ministers, dear delegates,

The Division of Prevention and Health Promotion is responsible for two EPW2 priorities: driving climate health action, and tackling NCDs and shaping the drivers of health.

Both matter to almost everyone: NCDs account for nine out of 10 deaths in our Region and we all face the effects of climate change.

That's why WHO/Europe established the Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health, who successfully launched its "Call to action" ahead of the World Health Assembly in May. You will hear more from the Chair of the Commission later today.

Our work on climate and health aims to prevent harm and support countries who prepare for increasing risks to health. Our updated guidance on heat - health action plans, developed by the Bonn office with support from the European Commission and Germany - provides practical steps for governments to protect the population most vulnerable to extreme heat.

Congratulations to Italy and Kazakhstan who have joined the Protocol on Water and Health, strengthening their commitment to safe water, sanitation and resilience to climate change. And in Montenegro, we are supporting a preventive approach to drinking-water safety.

Tackling NCDs and shaping the drivers of health

Turning to noncommunicable disease, our role is to support the full journey from data to impact: firstly, collect data to understand the situation; secondly, policy development; thirdly, policy implementation; and fourthly, monitoring and evaluating the impact.

Collecting data to understand the situation:

In Albania, we are supporting the country's first STEPS survey to understand the NCD burden and risk factors. In Ukraine, a remarkable achievement was the completion of the STEPS data in September.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, WHO- and UNFPA-supported studies on common cancers provide evidence to guide cancer prevention and early detection.

The latest round of our Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative brought together 37 countries and measurements from nearly 470 000 primary school children.

The new NCD trends report shows that 1.8 million avoidable deaths from NCDs in our Region among people under the age of 74 are avoidable through prevention or treatment.

Secondly, I move onto policy development.

Norway's restrictions on unhealthy food marketing to children show how WHO recommendations can translate into national legislation. Thank you for hosting the WHO European network meeting this year.

In Croatia, we are supporting an assessment of the legal environment to inform alcohol control policies.

We have also been supporting Serbia in developing the first by-law introducing pictorial health warnings on tobacco products.

WHO joined stakeholders in Slovakia to review the governance model for prevention and health promotion.

In Kyrgyzstan, WHO supported the Ministry of Health to develop the new NCD strategic vision, with expertise from our collaborating centre at the National Medical Research Center in Moscow, Russian Federation.

Moving onto policy implementation. Our support for trans-fat elimination in Türkiye and Georgia goes beyond adoption of the law. We are building the laboratory capacity to measure trans-fats in food.

In Republic of Moldova, we are working to pilot nicotine- and tobacco-free schools initiatives, including building the capacity of school staff because schools offer a great setting for health promotion.

Thank you also to Switzerland for successfully completing your term as the Chair of the European Salt Action Network.

Now I turn to the fourth part on monitoring and evaluation, which help governments improve their policies. In Latvia, WHO supported a study to evaluate the new alcohol availability restriction policies, which found a significant decline in alcohol-attributable deaths within the first five months of their introduction.

And in the Russian Federation, we have seen the decline of alcohol consumption through a range of measures to reduce access to alcohol and training PHC staff on screening and brief interventions supported by WHO.

Our report on two decades of implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in the European Union showed progress made, but also gaps, particularly those arising from new and emerging tobacco and nicotine products. Dear delegates, let's use every opportunity to protect our children from these products.

In Greece, we launched the digital Quality-for-All platform, combining indicators across the health sector and transforming them into actionable intelligence. Greece is supporting WHO to address quality of care and patient safety across the Region through a dedicated office in Athens.

As we begin developing a new strategy focusing on NCD prevention and health promotion, collaboration with trusted partners is more important than ever.

Our latest WHO collaborating centre - on youth participation in governance for health - in Slovenia aims to institutionalize meaningful engagement with youth.

Together with the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and the European Society of Cardiology, we also launched an initiative to address cardiovascular health in women.

Looking ahead, the WHO/Europe Innovation Summit for Public Health will be hosted in Szeged by our new WHO collaborating centre in Hungary on 14-16 April 2027.

These examples demonstrate how we deliver the two EPW2 priorities of driving climate health action and tackling NCDs and shaping the drivers of health.

I now hand over to Natasha, who will start with our work on mental health.

Living and ageing in good physical and mental health, Dr Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, Director of the Division of Health Systems

My thanks to Ireland and Cyprus for placing mental health at the heart of your EU presidencies. Evidence tells us clearly that over two in three young adults have faced at least one adverse childhood experience, impacting education and employment. Many continue to need mental health services and support.

And we recognize Türkiye's efforts to support the mental health inclusion of both migrants and the general population.

Mental health and well-being is no longer just a health issue, it is an overarching government policy issue, particularly given the profound and complex impact of the digital world.

Here I commend Monaco, Poland, Republic of Moldova and Sweden for your leadership roles in tackling this rapidly evolving issue. Over the past year, we have convened Member States and presented updated evidence to inform legislation and policy. Acting together protects health and builds trust in science.

Moving from mental health to our EPW priority on Ageing is Living.

My thanks to Albania, Czechia, Ireland and Uzbekistan, UNICEF, UNFPA and UNESCO for being part of our steering committee "Healthy Start to a Healthy Life" - truly UN80 in action.

We proudly co-hosted the World Summit on Investing in Children's Well-being, where Uzbekistan's First Lady was awarded for her work on child health and childhood cancer.

Republic of Moldova and Sweden, thank you for sharing your experience around youth health clinics, including sexual and reproductive health care. My thanks also to the Netherlands, with your support we are working on women's health and sexual and reproductive health.

From children and adolescents to centenarians.

With nearly 25 000 centenarians, Italy is the perfect place to house our healthy ageing portfolio, in Venice. I thank Italian leaders and parliamentarians for inviting WHO to the Senate in Rome for a discussion on healthy ageing. We also presented our work on the well-being economy, incubated in Venice, with thanks to Finland, the United Kingdom (Wales), Norway and Slovenia.

We also recognize the contribution and leadership of the WHO Collaborating Centre on the Promotion of Geriatrics and Care for Older Persons from the Russian Clinical and Research Center of Gerontology, including its role as a co-organizer of the Longevity Technologies Forum.

Shaping the health systems of the future

As life expectancy increases faster than healthy life expectancy, how are our health and long-term care systems going to cope?

Coming to our EPW2 priority: health system of the future, this was the very question at the heart of our 20th anniversary Baltic Policy Dialogue, on long-term care, hosted by Lithuania. I commend Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for your commitment to policy dialogues.

And I recognize with gratitude our strong collaboration with the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, currently chaired by Austria.

The red thread running through all discussions on health and care sustainability is undoubtedly the workforce, the people who deliver care.

This was echoed at our Small Countries Initiative meeting, kindly hosted by Latvia, and bringing together all Small Countries Initiative countries with a population under 2 million, again this year focusing on the health workforce.

Health workers are critical infrastructure, particularly in smaller countries, where small shifts can have an immediate and disproportionate impact on access to care.

Beyond small countries, nursing and carer shortages are hitting hard. Through our Nursing Action project, in partnership with DG SANTE, we developed a policy brief on safe staffing, education market analysis and a nursing mentorship toolkit.

Our regional analysis of the gender pay gap found that, although women account for 77% of the workforce, they earn on average up to 28% less per month than men.

Many times, shortages are specific to rural areas and specific skill profiles, like primary health care.

We are supporting several countries with health labour market analyses to help understand where workforce gaps exist, what drives them and how population needs are evolving and how the labour market needs to evolve.

I commend Kyrgyzstan for conducting an HLMA, with open, genuine dialogue among stakeholders.

The work under our EU-funded Health Resilience in the Eastern Partnership project is enabling Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine to advance health workforce mental health support, education, regulation and planning.

We recognize the efforts being made by local NGOs and the Ministry of Health of Israel to support health workers in the area of mental health-informed trauma care.

Undoubtedly, optimizing the utilization of digital technology and AI will also help to address workforce issues.

We have worked with Turkmenistan to develop their first digital health strategy, with Belarus to introduce an electronic patient atlas, and with Romania to digitalize an impressive 200 hospitals.

But AI and technology alone, without literacy and trust of people who use and deliver care, will not transform our health systems.

This was the key message of our AI event in Malta last November, based on our regional report, repeated again at our event in Brussels where some of you were present, and at the global conference convened by Portugal in July that focused on cost-effective investment.

Join us to continue these discussions in Ireland next February at the Global Health Expo. We will bring together three strands of work - work on AI, assistive technologies and health workforce - to show how to transform our health and care systems, while guaranteeing effective universal health coverage in a fast-changing world.

We have, over the past year, developed extensive leadership capacities on health financing through our Barcelona Office in Spain. Programmes that are not only held in Barcelona but have been taken to central Asia, Ukraine and Armenia. We are now able to draw on our data-rich UHC Watch platform.

In these exchanges and capacity-building events, we recognize the tough fiscal pressures countries operate under. The Novel Medicines Platform convenes funders, patient organizations and industry to continue to discuss ways in which we can improve access to high-cost therapies, making best use of scarce resources, and I invite you to use our consensus guidance document on sound principles for managed entry agreements.

In closing, I feel that "leaving no one behind as we work with countries to build health systems for the future" has been the hallmark of our work in the Health Systems Division.

Special Initiative: Strengthening the health system response to violence against women and girls, Dr Corinne Capuano, Officer-in-Charge, WHO Regional Office for Europe

The message is clear and worth repeating: nearly one in three women or girls in our Region will experience physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lives. Health care systems have both the responsibility and the means to help change this sad reality.

The Regional Director's Special Initiative to strengthen health systems' response to violence against women and girls is gaining momentum.

Last November, the report Care, courage, change, launched in partnership with the Spanish Ministry of Health, reaffirmed the essential role of health care systems in ensuring that survivors receive high-quality, needs-based care. This event also brought together a coalition of eight countries: Albania, France, Iceland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Slovenia, Spain and Tajikistan. Thank you for your commitment.

WHO guidelines are now incorporated into training, regulations and service delivery throughout our Region.

Several countries are harmonizing their legal frameworks and procedures to improve their response to such violence.

This work is achieved in three ways.

First, through greater cooperation between sectors. Republic of Moldova and Ukraine are strengthening their legislative frameworks and public policies to remove the barriers preventing access to essential services.

Second, through more accessible and better-tailored services. Exchanges between Latvia and Belgium are supporting the creation of care centres for victims of sexual violence in Latvia. Cooperation between countries is also helping to better prepare health care systems in Poland, combat violence against women and girls facilitated by digital technologies in Albania and strengthen surveillance in North Macedonia.

Third, through better-trained health care workers. WHO guidance is being incorporated into the training of health care professionals in Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.

In Türkiye, emergency medical teams have been specially trained in the clinical care of victims of rape and intimate partner violence.

I would like to thank our professional partners for their dedicated work.

To build on these efforts, we will launch an online toolkit by the end of the year, designed for policy-makers, health service managers and health care professionals. It will help ensure that survivors receive appropriate care, delivered with greater expertise and confidence.

Special Initiative: Primary health care for the future - a cross-cutting platform for health transformation

I will now focus on our second Special Initiative, dedicated to primary health care.

Primary health care ties together the five priorities of EPW2. It is the foundation that transforms our shared ambition into better health outcomes.

And that ambition is becoming a reality.

Over the past year, 20 country missions and three exchange programmes have helped governments strengthen their policies and transform service delivery.

In Uzbekistan, we are working with the Government to strengthen the role of nursing staff and empower general practitioners in order to reduce the number of specialist consultations and avoidable hospital admissions, improve equity, and make better use of public funds.

In Portugal, we supported a major shift towards integrated care, bringing together hospitals and primary care within 39 local health facilities.

As these examples show, there is no one-size-fits-all model. Our role is to draw on evidence and national expertise to support solutions tailored to national needs.

We are also strengthening our expertise through new WHO collaborating centres in Slovenia and Sweden, specializing in family medicine and primary health care in rural areas.

Our 12 cross-programmatic projects include a regional dashboard for primary health care performance and the scaling up of efforts to address noncommunicable diseases, mental health, tuberculosis and HIV.

An online conference on mental health services in primary care brought together more than 500 participants from 100 countries, whilst a new online course in family medicine, developed in collaboration with our Slovenian collaborating centre, is strengthening skills in the Western Balkans.

This initiative is also reshaping our own working methods.

Developed jointly by our divisions, programmes and country offices, the initiative includes in-house training to break down silos and harness all of WHO's expertise to support countries.

Your Excellencies,

In 2028, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Alma-Ata Declaration, which originated in our Region.

Let us renew this commitment and shape primary health care for future generations.

I warmly invite the heads of delegation to take part in the dialogue on Alma-Ata+50 during our high-level technical briefing and to explore the accompanying exhibition.

Your Excellencies,

None of these advances is possible in isolation. Partnerships are essential to the implementation of EPW2 and to promoting health through diplomacy.

Many decisions that affect health are taken outside the health sector in political, economic, security and parliamentary settings. Let us ensure that WHO's evidence and expertise inform these decisions.

I would now like to give the floor to Oxana Domenti, WHO's representative to the European Union.

Advancing health through partnerships and diplomacy, Dr Oxana Domenti, WHO Representative to the European Union

Merci beaucoup, Corinne.

We are deepening our partnership with the EU and its institutions: the European Commission and the EU agencies; the Council and its rotating presidencies; and the European Parliament.

You have heard today how this cooperation helps to deliver practical and technical support to countries, particularly under the EU4Health programme and Global Europe instruments. And these relationships also help to bring WHO evidence and expertise to wider policy debates, keep health high on Europe's agenda, and share EU best practices globally.

We have mobilized expertise from across WHO to contribute to the EU's Safe Hearts Plan, the Global Health Resilience Initiative, the Gender Equality Strategy and the forthcoming revision of the EU tobacco control framework, among other initiatives.

Our Brussels Office serves the entire Organization, connecting WHO expertise with European policy-making in both directions. WHO/Europe also contributes regularly to the EU health ministers' meetings and the EU Health Security Committee.

We bring health evidence into political spaces, find common ground and build coalitions around shared health priorities. We seek to align our priorities and avoid duplication. In this context, we just renewed our cooperation with ECDC.

Special thanks to Commissioners Várhelyi and Commissioner Lahbib, and to Director-General Gallina and her team, for their strong support for WHO and global health.

Our AHEAD health diplomacy programme reached Ashgabat this year, marking the CIS year of health and bringing together foreign affairs and health ministries from 10 countries for the first bilingual Russian-English training. I thank the President and Government of Turkmenistan for their patronage and generous hosting. At the request of Romania and Bulgaria, as well as the South-eastern Europe Health Network, we are also strengthening national and subregional health diplomacy capacity.

Parliamentarians are increasingly important partners, turning health commitments into legislation, financing and accountability. We have expanded our engagement with the European Parliament, the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and national parliaments in Italy, Armenia, Latvia, Czechia and several other countries.

WHO evidence is increasingly shaping parliamentary debate and legislative processes - putting it in the hands of those whose decisions shape people's health.

Thank you. And back to you, Corinne.

Shared priorities and joint delivery, Dr Corinne Capuano, Officer-in-Charge, WHO Regional Office for Europe

Thank you, Oxana.

We are also strengthening our dialogue with the regional and subregional organizations.

Your Excellencies, dear colleagues,

Let me conclude with a simple message.

The transformation of our working methods, trust, a rigorous scientific approach and collaboration are the cornerstones of one and the same evolution, as illustrated by the examples presented today.

WHO/Europe focuses on common priorities, shared expertise and better-coordinated action. We are changing the way we work within the Organization, and with you.

We have a clear goal: to harness the full strength of WHO to support the priorities of EPW2 and to be a reliable and trusted partner for every country, working to improve the health of their populations.

Thank you.