WHO Director-General's remarks at the opening ceremony of the XIII Global Baku Forum – 12 March 2026

First of all, my thanks to His Excellency President Aliyev and his government, and NGIC for the great hospitality, and for bringing us all together,

At the Munich Security Conference last year, I was speaking with a foreign minister about the large increases in defence spending that some countries had announced.

By the way, for your information military expenditure in 2025 reached US$ 2.7 trillion, which is 30 times the money we need to eradicate hunger by 2030. You can see the paradox.

So I asked this minister why the increase in defence spending, because country after country was announcing that.

He said to me, "We have to prepare for the worst."

I said, "I understand. But what about preparing for an attack from an invisible enemy?"

The foreign minister looked at me and said, "What invisible enemy?"

And I said, "A pandemic, like COVID-19, which killed an estimated 20 million people - more than any war in living memory - and wiped more than US$ 10 trillion from the global economy."

The minister agreed on the need to strike a balance.

But that conversation illustrated perfectly the cycle of panic and neglect that has characterised the global response to epidemics and pandemics for decades.

The world lurches from one crisis to another without learning the painful lessons they teach us, condemning ourselves to repeat the same mistakes again and again.

And although a pandemic has the potential to kill millions and paralyse economies and societies, as a world we spend relatively little defending ourselves from a potential attack from a virus, compared with the trillions we spend defending ourselves from each other.

And yet, as COVID-19 demonstrated, in a globalised world, health security is national security.

Viruses don't need visas; pathogens don't respect borders. And misinformation spreads faster than diplomacy.

Health therefore offers a powerful opportunity for bridging divides because it sits at the intersection of security, development, equity and trust.

It transcends borders, ideologies, economies, ethnicities, religions and every other excuse we find to divide ourselves from each other.

In a divided and divisive world, health is one of the few areas in which nations can - and should - come together across ideological divides to find shared solutions to shared threats.

That is exactly why the World Health Organization was created almost 78 years ago.

And it's why our Member States continue to work under its umbrella.

Just last year, they adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement - which once ratified will become a landmark instrument of international law for keeping the world safer from future pandemics.

They are now negotiating an annex to the Pandemic Agreement, the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system - PABS - to ensure rapid detection and sharing of pathogens with pandemic potential, and equitable and timely access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

We are hopeful that the negotiations will be completed in time for the PABS annex to be adopted at this year's World Health Assembly, so the Pandemic Agreement can be opened for signature and finally enter into force as international law.

The negotiations are not easy, but nothing worth doing is easy.

Countries are not doing this out of charity or idealism - they're doing it because cooperating on surveillance, early warning, data and equitable access to countermeasures is in their own national interest.

That is the point of multilateralism - not to eliminate differences, but to manage shared risk.

And yet, as you know, multilateralism is itself under threat, as many speakers have said, with the retreat of the United Staes from the system of international cooperation it helped to build.

Over the past year, WHO has been through a difficult period of prioritization and realignment as we adapt to the withdrawal of our largest donor.

But even in this crisis, we see opportunity. I am confident that WHO will emerge from this situation stronger, sharper and more focused on our core mandate - more empowered and independent to serve the nations and people of the world.

The Organization I have the honour to lead was created in the aftermath of the Second World War, from the realization that the only alternative to global conflict was global cooperation.

The reasons WHO was established are the same reasons WHO continues to operate today, and why almost all the nations of the world continue to see it as an indispensable platform for global cooperation.

In the end, we are one species, sharing the same planet, the same DNA and the same threats.

In the end, we have no future but a common future.

The question is not whether cooperation is ideal, but whether it is optional.

Bridging divides starts with rebuilding trust - between nations, between institutions and people, and between power and legitimacy - so that when the next crisis comes, we respond not as isolated actors, but as a connected united world.

I thank you.