Your Excellency Taye Atske Selassie, President of Ethiopia,
Your Excellency Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the African Union Commission,
The Honourable Dr Assa Badiallo Touré, Minister of Health and Social Development of Mali and Chairperson of the Seventy-fifth Regional Committee,
The Honourable Dr Mekdes Daba Feyssa, Minister of Health of Ethiopia,
Honourable Ministers and heads of delegation,
My friend and colleague, Regional Director, Professor Mohamed Janabi,
Dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning to you all. I regret deeply that I cannot be with you in person today.
I thank the Government and people of Ethiopia, especially His Excellency the President, for hosting this year's Regional Committee meeting,
And I thank Professor Janabi for his first full report as Regional Director, documenting one of the most demanding, and significant, years in the Region's recent history.
Despite the deepest cuts to international health financing in a generation, our Region achieved significant gains last year.
Eight countries, including Algeria, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Guinea, Kenya, Mauritius and Senegal, reached major disease-elimination milestones;
And more than 28 million doses of donated NTD medicines were delivered despite a funding freeze, including in DRC, which carries the world's largest burden of sleeping sickness.
An estimated 21.7 million people living with HIV were kept on uninterrupted treatment, with Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe already reaching the 95-95-95 targets;
And TB treatment coverage recovered to 74 percent, up from 52 percent in 2020, with Uganda now treating more than 90 percent of estimated cases.
The Big Catch-up reached more than 18 million children who had missed vaccines, and WHO has supported the rollout of the malaria vaccine to 25 countries – in Burkina Faso, cases have already fallen by nearly a third.
Six new countries introduced HPV vaccination, and Cabo Verde, Mauritius and Seychelles became the first sub-Saharan countries to achieve verified measles and rubella elimination.
On mental health, four million more people in Ghana and Zimbabwe gained access to services;
And outbreaks are being detected and contained faster – Ethiopia's Marburg outbreak and DRC's previous Ebola outbreak were both contained within 90 days.
My congratulations to all Member States and staff for these achievements.
But as we all know, the Region continues to face multiple challenges.
Families still pay a third of all health spending out of pocket;
Cholera reached a regional record of more than 245 000 cases;
44 of 47 countries cannot reliably record why their people die;
And about 70 percent of maternal deaths, and almost half of under-5 deaths globally are in Africa.
We also meet against the backdrop of an Ebola epidemic in DRC – the second largest in history, spreading faster than any before it, with more than 5 500 infected and over 2 600 dead across six provinces.
The epidemic had already reached Uganda before we knew of it, though Uganda's decisive response stopped it there.
With the government of DRC, Africa CDC and partners, we are scaling up the response,
And we also advancing clinical trials of three vaccines, and three treatments.
But many chains of transmission remain unfound.
We must also remember that Ebola is only one of the threats the people of the DRC face – which is why our top priority must remain strengthening health systems as the foundation of universal health coverage.
That task has become harder due to the deep cuts to international financing many countries faced last year.
This was not gradual – lifesaving programmes lost their footing almost overnight, clinics closed, and health workers lost jobs.
HIV, TB, malaria, NTD and maternal and newborn care programmes were hit hardest.
Your Secretariat has supported Member States to mobilise domestic resources, including health taxes: 15 countries reformed tobacco taxation last year.
South Africa now funds three-quarters of its HIV response domestically, and Nigeria increased domestic TB funding.
In this crisis lies an opportunity: to leave aid dependency behind and build health sovereignty, self-reliance and solidarity.
I’m encouraged to see the many initiatives that many countries in our continent have started.
Your agenda this week responds directly to these challenges.
The Strategy for financing the future of health sets out how the Region can move, over the next decade, from dependency to domestically financed systems.
The Africa Health Workforce Agenda confronts the chronic shortage of health workers,
And the regional strategy on regulation of medical products lays a foundation for local manufacturing.
This builds on the work that WHO has done to strengthen local production through the mRNA Technology Transfer Hub in Cape Town, and the technical and financial support we have given to the African Medicines Agency.
I congratulate Ethiopia, and today Mozambique, for reaching regulatory maturity level 3.
Stronger local production also lets us accelerate action on antimicrobial resistance.
Colleagues, the items on your agenda are not separate documents.
Guided by your vision, "A new era of health for Africa", they are the blueprint of the future you are choosing – one defined by sovereignty and solidarity.
The past year has been one of profound change for WHO too.
Although the cuts we faced were a shock, they were a shock we had predicted, and prepared for.
When we began the WHO Transformation in 2017, we identified our over-reliance on a handful of donors as a major risk.
We proposed a plan, approved in 2022, to raise assessed contributions to 50 percent of the base budget from just 20 percent;
As you know, the first increase came in 2023, the second in 2025, and three more are planned for 2027, 2029 and 2031.
We also broadened our donor base through the WHO Foundation and our first Investment Round – and I thank the 22 Member States from Africa that contributed to the Investment Round.
Thanks to these measures, we have mobilized 92 percent of the resources needed for this biennium's base budget – 2026-27 – our best position at this stage of a biennium ever.
But because most voluntary contributions remain earmarked, pockets of poverty persist in parts of our work.
We have now completed the process of prioritization and realignment, and reached a point of stability: more focused, and more independent.
This happened because of your support.
At the same time, we must remember that WHO is only one part of the global health architecture, and last year's cuts exposed weaknesses that must be addressed.
At the World Health Assembly in May, Member States tasked the Secretariat with hosting a joint reform process that is country-centred, inclusive and transparent;
A Task Force has been established and will report later this year.
WHO approaches this with humility, as a convener of equals.
Your Excellency President Taye Atske Selassie,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends, let me leave you with five priorities for the next year – a to-do list, if you will.
First, finalize the PABS Annex, so the Pandemic Agreement can enter into force.
Second, approve the next increase in assessed contributions at next May's World Health Assembly, which will continue to increase sustainable financing for the Organization.
Third, engage proactively with reform of the Global Health Architecture, and shape one that works for you.
Fourth, support the Ebola response in DRC.
And fifth: build on WHO's Transformation, and continue shaping a leaner, sharper organization that delivers results where it matters most: in your countries.
As you know, and my colleague and friend Professor Janabi said earlier, this is my final Regional Committee meeting as Director-General, before I finish my tenure in August 2027.
When I first addressed this Committee, in Zimbabwe in 2017, I said Member States must be in the driver's seat. They should own their agenda.
Nine years on, that is becoming the principle on which Africa finances, governs and delivers its own health.
Our Africa is at an inflection point.
For many years we have relied on foreign donors, and of course, we’re grateful.
But the truth is Africa loses far more than it receives:
Each year, the continent loses an estimated US$ 90 billion to illicit financial flows, more than the US$ 74 billion it received in official development assistance in 2023;
While governments now spend more servicing external debt than they receive in aid – US$ 163 billion last year, with more than half of countries spending more on interest than on health.
If we can curb illicit financial flows, secure fairer debt terms, and make full use of health taxes alongside other domestic reforms already under way, Africa will have more than enough resources to finance the health of its own people.
This is the new era we must build: one defined and financed by Africa, for Africa, in which together we build the Africa we all want – a healthier, safer, fairer Africa.
I thank all Member States, and all colleagues in the regional and country offices, for your support and everything you have done, and continue to do.
It has been the greatest honour of my life to serve as your Director-General, and I hope you will continue to support me on the vision I have outlined for the next year.
I wish all of you every success.
I thank you.