WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the 150th session of the Executive Board — 25 January 2022
25 January 2022
Dr Patrick Amoth, Chair of the Executive Board,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Five years ago, you, the Member States gave me the honour of my life, when you placed your trust in me to lead and transform this vitally important global organisation.
I told you then that my priority was to listen, and that is what I have tried to do.
I listened to you about your priorities and ideas, and what you expect from your WHO.
And I listened to those who know WHO best – our workforce, my colleagues – for their ideas about how to make this Organization the best it can be.
Those ideas became the basis of the transformation, to make WHO an Organization that can deliver a measurable difference to health in countries, in six ways:
By the way, I would like to share with you that I continue to listen to our staff every week on Thursdays, to listen to their advice and innovative ideas. The culture has continued. When I was Minister of Health and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Ethiopia, I used the same thing, listening on Thursday to my staff, because listening is the basis. If you listen, the next steps will be okay.
From listening to Member States and staff, a new strategy – the 13th General Programme of Work – to move us from a focus on outputs to a focus on outcomes has been developed;
New processes, to make us more efficient and effective;
A new operating model, moving from an organization that is fragmented towards one that is integrated, aligned and agile;
A new approach to partnerships, moving from risk aversity to risk management;
A new approach to financing, to move us towards a more sustainable and predictable funding model;
And a new culture, built on a shared commitment to service, professionalism, integrity, collaboration and compassion.
That was the product of listening to Member States and listening to my colleagues, my staff.
Then, as you know, two years ago, COVID-19 changed everything. But the transformation – built on the ideas and energy of our staff – had positioned us to respond more rapidly and effectively than to any previous emergency.
Let me take a moment to share a story from the beginning of the pandemic that really touched my heart and gave me energy and inspiration.
On December 31st 2019, New Year’s Eve, as most of the world was having a party, our WHO colleagues were at work, scanning potential signals as they do 365 days a year.
And that's when they saw the first signal about a cluster of cases of viral pneumonia of unknown cause, from a website in Wuhan.
They didn’t say it could wait until the New Year, they acted immediately, alerting me and others.
The next day, January 1st, they didn’t take a holiday, they continued to work to verify the signal, and the next day, January 2nd, they confirmed it, triggering the response across the entire organization.
They said we have a new disease which is serious, they didn’t have a New Year’s Eve, a New Year’s celebration, working throughout – and me too, although I took my first holiday since I joined WHO, and I remember that I was in Dubai, but it wasn’t a holiday for them and it wasn’t a holiday for me. That was the first holiday in 5 years for me, and that didn’t even work, because of the bad news.
