Excellencies; Hon’ble Ministers; Director-General; Distinguished Delegates; Partners, Colleagues and Friends,
Bondia, good morning, and welcome to the Seventy-ninth Session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia.
My sincere thanks to the Government and people of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste for hosting this year's Committee, and for your ongoing partnership and support.
In just over two decades since Independence, Timor-Leste has added more than a decade to the lives of its people – a tremendous achievement, and a powerful reminder of what sustained investment, guided by the conviction that health is a fundamental right, can achieve.
My thanks and welcome also to the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who, since the beginning of his tenure, has been a true friend of the Region, championing its priorities, amplifying its voice and standing firmly behind its aspirations.
It is an honour to host you, D-G.
And my utmost gratitude to all Excellencies, delegations, partners and civil society organizations for your presence, and for your continued partnership through a period of profound change for the Organization and for global health.
History reminds us that there are times when change unfolds over years, and times when years of change are compressed into months – a truth we have all now lived.
But today, that period has given way to a new equilibrium, one we have not just adapted to, but helped shape:
Through organizational reform;
Through greater country ownership;
Through innovative financing;
Through sharper prioritization;
And through results-based management, measuring success not by what we do, but by the difference we make.
Excellencies,
It is from this position that the business of this Committee begins:
To accelerate progress towards universal health coverage and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals.
To advance a people-centred approach to multidisease elimination, recognizing that both people and public health are best served when programmes work together, not in isolation.
To close the gap towards ending tuberculosis in the world’s most TB-affected Region.
To expand equitable access to quality medical devices, including in vitro diagnostics.
To build more resilient health facilities in an age of intensifying climate and health threats.
To harness the transformative potential of digital health and artificial intelligence, while ensuring innovation advances equity, trust and better health for all.
And, of course, to take stock of how we have delivered on commitments already made – from maternal and child health to mental health, measles and rubella elimination, and regional health security.
But first, to our Ministerial Roundtable.
Eleven years ago, when this Committee last met in Timor-Leste, our Region stood at the beginning of the Decade for Strengthening Human Resources for Health.
Today, we return with that Decade behind us, having achieved a 70% increase in the density of doctors, nurses and midwives across our Region – a remarkable milestone.
But while many countries still face health workforce shortages, the conversation has evolved. The focus is no longer simply on producing more health workers, but on ensuring they have the skills, support and distribution needed to deliver equitable access to specialized care – the focus of today’s discussion.
Together, how best can we align health workforce planning, education, deployment and retention with the changing health needs of our populations?
In what ways can we strengthen family medicine, multidisciplinary teams and innovative models of care to extend specialist services to rural, remote and underserved communities?
How can digital technologies best be harnessed while strengthening governance, regulation and collaboration across our Region?
And what more can WHO do to support Member States in translating these ambitions into lasting progress towards universal health coverage?
These are difficult questions to which we must find answers – together.
Over the coming days, we will hear different perspectives, different experiences and different approaches to a range of issues. On each, there will be no single model for success, nor should there be.
But there will be ideas worth adapting, innovations worth scaling, and lessons worth sharing. That has always been the strength of this Committee.
Because regional cooperation is not about uniformity. It is about learning from one another. It is about ensuring that an innovation in one country becomes an opportunity for another; that evidence becomes action; and that our collective experience accelerates progress across the Region.
Thank you.