Opening Remarks at SEARO 'P' Staff Retreat, Radisson Hotel, New Delhi, 4-6 November 2004

Opening Remarks by Dr Samlee Plianbangchang Regional Director, WHO/SEARO at the SEARO ‘P’ Staff Retreat Radisson, New Delhi 4-6 November 2004 SEARO ‘P’ Staff Retreat Radisson Hotel, New Delhi, 4-6 November 2004 Opening Remarks by Dr Samlee Plianbangchang Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Colleagues and Friends, • When my Government nominated me for RD post, I thought that decentralization should be high in the priority list of my work, if I was elected. • This thought came from my many years of experience in WHO during the past. • And therefore, I made a start on decentralization in a big way upon my taking over the RD post last March. • There are many reasons why we should take vigorous action on decentralization. • What I am going to say further now is not new, some or most of you have heard before. • During 56 years of WHO’s existence, there has been a lot of changes around us, nationally and internationally. • In the Member States: - there have been socioeconomic changes, including changes in the lifestyles of people; - there have been political polarizations leading to changes in the country governance; 2 - most importantly, countries have markedly gained capability and capacity in pursuing their own development agenda, even though at varying degrees. • At international level: - concepts of health and health development have expanded a lot; - health has been globally recognized as center of development; - health development has been pursued more and more through multisectoral and multidisciplinary efforts; and - during the past few decades, many more agencies take their responsibility in the areas of health. • Health does not belong exclusively to WHO any longer. • WHO now has to be really competitive in order to remain credible and effective in its support to Member States. • With this scenario, there is certainly a real need for change in the way WHO is functioning. • One of the important calls for change has been decentralization of the WHO work towards country level. • And therefore, decentralization of the WHO work has become the important management policy of the Organization. • The Member States have also been longing to see WHO’s collaborative activities carried out closer to them; more relevant and responsive to their needs and requirements. • However, progress in the decentralization process has been slow due to many reasons. 3 • This is in spite of the fact that decentralization has been the overriding organizational strategy in the WHO’s management reform for some years already. • To support this reform initiative, there had been in-house exercises relating to: - WHO strategy to work with and in countries, - WHO Country Cooperation Strategy (CCS), and - WHO country focus and WHO specific country approach. • The pursuance of the overall WHO policy on decentralization is our overriding organizational priority in SEAR now. • These are the elements of our decentralization strategy in the Region: 1. to pursue effective implementation of the principles and concepts of WHO Country Cooperation Strategy (CCS); 2. to further operationalize WHO country focus and WHO specific country approach; 3. to implement the idea of horizontal collaboration among WHO country offices; 4. to pursue decentralization of certain regional and intercountry functions to country level; and 5. to maintain the high proportion of budgetary resources in countries (75%). • Through this perspective, the Regional Office staff has to provide critical support to these decentralization elements. 4 • As we are aware, delegation of authority to WHO country representatives has been doubled. • This delegation is not only in financial terms, but also in other several management aspects. • Now, the Regional Office staff has to pursue extensively the strengthening of WHO presence in countries, especially the strengthening of capability and capacity of WHO country offices. • It is also a policy of the Director-General to decentralize 75% of the WHO global resources to countries and regions. • These resources will be mostly allocated for activities at the country level. • In future, WHO work for direct support to countries will be exclusively planned and carried out in countries. • This necessitates the need for a unified planning process to be pursued jointly by the RO and CO staff. • In terms of collaboration with Member States, there are three main categories of WHO work at regional level: 1. Direct support to individual countries, 2. Normative work, and 3. Intercountry coordination. • In our decentralization strategy, ultimately WHO country offices will be operational offices with the following functions: - direct support to individual countries; - contribution to normative work, especially in providing the required information; 5 - promotion of intercountry cooperation through horizontal collaboration between or among WHO country offices; and - interagency coordination and cooperation at country level, and resource mobilization. • The Regional Office in future, will be strategic office with the following functions: - coordinating regional policy and strategy within the global framework; - performing normative work in coordination with HQ and in collaboration with WHO country offices; - promotion and coordination of intercountry cooperation activities; - monitoring and evaluation of WHO regional biennial programme budget; - pursuing oversight work to support executive management; - providing support to WHO country work as required; - strengthening the capacity of WHO country offices; and - resources mobilization and interagency coordination. • As said earlier, with these trends in view, joint planning between Regional Office and WHO country offices is of paramount importance. • I have touched on the background of our decentralization strategy in a nutshell to facilitate our considerations and discussions. 6 • For this Retreat, we will focus on the three important areas: 1. horizontal collaboration among WHO country offices, 2. decentralization of regional and intercountry functions to country level, and 3. the issue on how country programme budget can contribute to intercountry activities (“ICP-II” successor arrangement). • Please keep in mind during our course of deliberations that these three areas are very much interrelated and overlapped, they are closely supporting each other. • And, very importantly to keep in mind, these areas have a potential of sensitivity, which we have to handle with care and discretion. • There are three papers on these subjects prepared by Helge to help us in the course of our discussions. • Please come up with realistic and practical ideas on how to proceed with the operationalization of these three elements in the most efficient and effective manner. • The successful pursuance of this decentralization exercise depends entirely on the combined efforts of all staff members, at both regional and country levels. • The organizers of the Retreat will try their best to make us clearly understand the operational concepts and approaches of the subjects under our consideration. • This Retreat will not be ‘once and all’, but it will be in a series, when we can have more opportunities to review together the operational issues on the ground, with the view to ensuring effective implementation of our decentralization strategy. 7 • During the course of this Retreat, I will be available from time to time for any clarification, if needed. • In this connection, I would like to thank DRD, DPM, DAF and all concerned staff members for their efforts in organizing this retreat. • Finally, I wish the Retreat all success. Thank you. Q:\RD-OFFICE\Speeches\2004\P staff Retreat 4-6 Nov 04 - final.doc – 8 Nov 04/2.30 pm