WHO Director-General's remarks at the UNGA side event: Rescuing health-related SDGs in times of crisis: aligning multilateral collaboration for country impact – 25 September 2025

Your Excellency Ambassador Cherdchai,

Honourable Minister Dr Lutucuta,

Honourable Minister Dr Mónica García Gómez,

My colleagues, Dr Sania Nishtar, Dr John-Arne Røttingen,

Excellencies, distinguished guests, dear colleagues and friends,

I thank the Government of Thailand for hosting this important discussion.

The world is severely off track to reach the health-related Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, including reducing the leading causes of death due to noncommunicable diseases.

Mental health conditions now affect more than one billion people worldwide, yet government spending in mental health services is underprioritized.

Today's High-Level Meeting on NCDs and Mental Health is an important opportunity for countries to make concrete commitments.

They must do this in a new economic reality, with sudden and steep cuts to aid that have caused the most severe disruptions to health systems since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The cuts come on top of the already chronic domestic underinvestment and aid dependency in developing countries.

The result is that lives are being lost, and millions are being pushed into poorer health.

The recent Financing for Development conference in Seville made progress in key areas. My sincere thanks to Minister Gomez and the Government of Spain for its leadership.

The conference addressed key factors, especially the debt trap that prevents vital investments in health and education,

The G20 Summit under the South African Presidency in November will take this issue forward.

But it is also critical for countries to mobilize domestic resources and foster self-reliance to support primary health care as the foundation of universal health coverage.

Because health is not a cost to contain, it's an investment in people and prosperity.

Health is central to development, well-being and security, and investing in health provides the basis both for economic and fiscal space growth.

But in the historic crisis we are facing also lies an opportunity:

An opportunity to shake off the yoke of aid dependency, and embrace a new era of sovereignty, self-reliance and solidarity.

In my recent meetings with African leaders they told me they are ready to make that transition.

I am sure you will hear more about this from Minister Lutucuta of Angola, which currently holds the Presidency of the African Union.

WHO will continue our work to support countries to mobilize money for health, and to increase the efficiency of their health systems, in line with the Lusaka Agenda of one plan, one budget, one report.

Financing is not the only element in the current crisis. Multilateralism itself is also being challenged, with eroding trust in global institutions, including the UN system.

So we must also use this as an opportunity to take a look at ourselves and see how we can do better and become more efficient and fit-for-purpose to respond to the crisis and better serve people everywhere.

Navigating this time of crisis requires leadership.

WHO has thrown our wholehearted support behind the UN80 initiative, launched earlier this year by Secretary-General António Guterres.

The emerging recommendations from the UN80 process deserve our careful consideration.

We will continue to work with partners, inside the UN system as well as outside, to streamline what we do, sharpen our impact, and reaffirm our relevance in a rapidly changing world.

Collaboration is ingrained in WHO's DNA, as the specialized global agency for health, with a mandate to convene and coordinate international health work, setting norms and standards.

However, it's important to acknowledge that the world has changed since we were founded in 1948.

The global health system has grown and become more complex. So WHO has changed, and we will continue to change, to adapt end evolve.

In 2018 we responded to a call from leaders of Ghana, Germany and Norway to accelerate progress on the SDGs.

Our response was a collective commitment by 13 multilateral organizations to collaborate, in a Global Action Plan.

We have now documented our lessons learned, with forward-looking recommendations.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we collectively launched the fastest, most coordinated, and successful global effort in history to develop tools to fight one disease: the ACT-Accelerator.

This endeavour is now being evaluated, and will provide important input to future collaborative endeavours.

But we must not stop there. We must address the deficient global health architecture.

We must work together more closely than ever as true partners, not competitors.

After all, we're on the same team, serving the people of the world.

When we undermine or compete with one another, it's the people of the world who lose.

We also need your support as countries to hold us accountable for our shared commitments.

Let us seize this moment, not just to repair - but to transform.

Thank you.