WHO Director-General's closing remarks at the One Health Summit – 7 April 2026

Your Excellency President Emmanuel Macron,

Excellencies, Honourable Ministers, distinguished leaders, colleagues and friends,

Bonsoir à toutes et à tous.

First, let me express my sincere gratitude to Your Excellency President Macron and the Government of France for convening this important summit.

My thanks also to the Metropole of Lyon and the City of Lyon for its hospitality and welcome.

And my thanks finally to all of the presenters and participants. You have demonstrated that One Health is not just one approach; it is the only approach.

The health of humans, animals and the environment are inextricably interwoven. We cannot protect one without protecting all three.

There are so many examples:

Asthma and air pollution;

Cholera and sanitation;

Yellow fever, dengue, malaria and mosquitoes;

Ebola and fruit bats;

Or rabies and dogs.

We can treat and prevent all of these diseases with vaccines, therapeutics and other countermeasures.

But addressing their root causes demands a One Health approach - not as an abstract concept, but as concrete action.

That's why WHO, FAO and OIE - now WOAH - formed the tripartite in 2010, which became the Quadripartite in 2022 when UNEP joined us.

Together, we are committed to working across sectors and across silos to protect the health of humans, animals and the planet we all share.

We are guided by the One Health Joint Plan of Action, and supported by the One Health High-Level Expert Panel, or OHHLEP [oh-lep], which provides independent scientific advice to guide collective action.

I'm pleased to announce today that we are extending the current term of OHHLEP until April 2027, and we are strengthening its role to better translate scientific evidence into concrete policy guidance and effective implementation.

WHO is also planning to launch a new Global Network of One Health Institutions, to deliver the objectives of the One Health Joint Plan of Action, which we will invite our Quadripartite partners to join.

This unified network will bring together scientific institutions, research centres, and training platforms across regions and disciplines, drawn from across our agencies and the global scientific community.

Its purpose is to strengthen collaboration, bringing greater coherence, coordination, and shared direction.

This will be one of WHO's key priorities when we assume the Chair of the Quadripartite tomorrow - and I thank Dr Qu Dongyu and FAO for their leadership over the past year.

Your Excellency, dear colleagues and friends,

As you know, today is World Health Day, marking the date on which the Constitution of the World Health Organization entered into force, on the 7^th of April 1948.

Or to put it another way, today is our 78^th birthday.

This year, we have chosen the theme, "Together for health. Stand with science."

Science has always been at the heart of everything WHO does.

Over the past nine years, WHO has taken several steps to strengthen our focus on science as part of Transformation project.

For the first time in the Organization's history, we created a new Science Division, and created a new role for a Chief Scientist, who sits on our Executive Management committee.

In 2024, I also had the honour of opening the WHO Academy with President Macron here in Lyon.

The Academy is a new institution to translate science into policy and action, by equipping health and care workers, policymakers and the WHO workforce with the skills and competencies they need to deliver health for all.

Another way in which WHO is strengthening its focus on science is through our global network of collaborating centres.

One of the functions assigned to WHO in the Constitution is to "promote and conduct research in the field of health".

But rather than establish its own research institutions, from the beginning WHO's Member States decided that we should leverage the expertise of institutions around the world - what we know today as WHO Collaborating Centres.

Over the past 78 years, WHO has built of a network of almost 800 Collaborating Centres from universities, research institutes, hospitals and laboratories in 80 countries - the largest network of public health institutions in the world.

Many of these collaborating centres work on One Health issues, such as the seasonal influenza vaccine composition, or the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System, "GLASS".

Starting today, WHO is hosting a Global Forum of WHO Collaborating Centres here in Lyon, bringing together experts from hundreds of collaborating centres.

WHO's network of Collaborating Centres represent an incredible scientific asset for the world - and asset that we want to leverage to the maximum.

Once again, my thanks to Your Excellency President Macron and to the Government and people of France for your hospitality.

My thanks also to our Quadripartite partners for your leadership and partnership.

The health of humans, animals and our environment cannot be separated - and neither can we.

Together for science.

Together for One Health.

Merci beaucoup.