WORLD HE AL TH ORGANIZATION REGIONAL OFFICE FORAFRICA
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ORGANISATION MONDIALE DE LA SANTE BUREAU REGIONAL DE L'AFRIQUE
ORGANIZAÇÂO MUl'I1HAL DE SAÛDE SEDE REGIONAL EM ÂFRICA
REGIONAL COMMITTEE FOR AFRICA Forty-eighth session Harare. Zimbabwe. 31 August - 4 September 1998
AFRlRC48/Conf,Doc.l1 31 August 1998 ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
OPENL"IG SPEECH OF THE CHAIRPERSON, DR NKOSAZANA CLARICE DLAMINI-ZUMA
Your Excellency, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Director-General of the WHO, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, The Regional Direetor, Dr Ebrahim Maliek Samba, Honourable Ministers, Your Exeelleneies, Members of the Diplomatie Corps, Representatives of United Nations agencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, 1 welcome you all to the opening of the forty-eighth session of the WHO Regional Committee for Afriea. 1 feel highly privileged to welcome, on your behalf, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who has graciously agreed to declare this meeting open. 1 am very glad to welcome the new Director-General of the WHO, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, who is attending our meeting for the first time. On behalf of all of you, 1 congratulate Dr Brundtland, once again, on her election to!his extremely important position. We offer her our full support and cooperation throughout her tenure. 1 would also like to express our deep gratitude to President Mugabe and the government and people of Zimbabwe for the hospitality that they have shown us since our arrivai and for the excellent facilities made available for this meeting. In addition, we are immensely grateful to them for offering temporary refuge to the Regional Office afler its evacuation from Brazzaville. We thank them for the facilities they have provided to enable the Office to function effectively with minimum delay from Harare. Honourable Ministers, You will recall that, at our last meeting in Sun City, we had agreed that the forty-eighth session should take place in Dakar, Senegal. As you must have been informed, the Senegalese Government later advised the Regional Office of its inability to host the meeting this year. The Regional Office was therefore obliged to make alternative arrangements. This is why we are meeting in Harare. We thank the Zimbabwe Government for their ready cooperation and assistance in this regard. The period since we met in Sun City has been very eventful. lt has witnessed the implementation of our decision to relocate the Regional Office temporarily to Harare, a process which has gone very satisfactorily. The year has .lso seen the celebration of the fiflieth anniversary of the World Health Organization and the election of a very dyoamie lady, Dr Brundtland, as its Director-General.
AFR/RC48/ConfDoc./l page 2 ln the course of the year, we participated in the fiftieth session of the World Health Assembly and, as you are all aware, the African Region fared very well at that meeting. After a very prolonged debate, the Assembly gave due recognition to the extraordinary health needs of the Region and significanlly increased the regular budget allocation to its programmes. The meeting also provided African Ministers with the opportunity ta hold consultations on several issues and review the progress made on the African Initiative for Malaria Control in the 21 st century. The African Region experienced a great deal of upheaval during the year and this placed increased pressure on the available health care resources. The situations in Sierra Leone, Angola, Democratie Republic of Congo and that between Ethiopia and Eritrea, among others, imposed additional demands for human resources, large quantities of drugs and other medical supplies. The WHO and other paTlners have risen creditably to the occasion. ln spite ofthese and other difficulties, considerable progress was made in the work of WHO in the Region during the year, especially in the implementation ofresolutions passed at previous meetings. However, there is no doubt that great challenges lie ahead of us in the health sector in Africa. The menace ofHIV/AIDS Iooms larger each day and il is becoming increasingly urgent for our govemments to tackle this problem with the seriousness il deserves. Malaria and tuberculosis are making greater inroads in the Region and threatening the health and lives of more and more of our people. As the problems increase, the resources made available to deal with them are becoming relatively smaller. Il is our duty, individually as ministers and collectively as the WHO Regional Committee for Africa, to find solutions to these problems. We have been lrying our best in to do this and 1 am convinced that we will continue to do so until the desired improvement in the health status of our people is achieved. 1 would like to end by thanking you ail for the cooperation you have given me during my tenure as chairperson of the Regional Committee. Il has been an honour and a wonderful experience for me to have this opportunity ta serve our continent. 1 am particularly grateful ta the Regional Director, Dr Ebrahim M. Samba, and his staff for the support they have given me during the year and their hard work and commitment to duty in the face of great odds. 1 urge you to give similar cooperation and support to my successor. 1 thank you all for your attention.