WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
ORGANISATION MONDIALE DE LA SANTE
REGIONAL OFFICE FOR THE WESTERN PACIFIC BUREAU REGIONAL DU PACIFIQUE OCCIDENTAL
REGIONAL COMMITTEE Sixty-second session Manila, Philippines 10-14 October 2011 Agenda item 15
WPR/RC62/NGO/6 13 October 2011 ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
STATEMENT BY THE SECRETARIAT OF THE PACIFIC COMMUNITY By Dr William Parr I bring you greetings from the Director General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Dr Jimmie Rodgers. Because of time constraints, I will be economical in my comments. SPC is the largest and oldest inter-government technical agency in the Pacific, having been in existence for over 64 years. We work across 18 sectors including in the area of public health, youth, women, land resources, fisheries, education, transport and trade. The Secretariat of the Pacific Community greatly appreciates the strategic leadership and policy setting role that the World Health Organization provides in the Pacific region. We greatly value the very strong and equitable partnership been that has been further strengthened and consolidated between our organization and WHO during the period that Dr Shin Young-soo has taken on the role of Regional Director, and more recently following the full establishment of the Pacific Technical Division that is under the management of Dr Dong Il Ahn. We are pleased during 2011 to have been able to facilitate the improved access of the World Health Organization to the political leaders of our region through the Pacific Plan Action Committee meetings and the more recent Pacific Forum Leaders meeting held in Auckland, New Zealand a few weeks back. We consider that this increased access to the highest level of leadership in the Pacific for WHO to be important in ensuring that health sits high on the development agenda. We wish to put on record the strong commitment of SPC to further enhance our joint working relationship with WHO in the coming years and to further improve coordination of technical assistance to our member countries and areas. We would encourage WHO to explore with SPC the opportunity for joint programming to leverage on our natural strength and expertise in other key sectors such as agriculture and fisheries as one means to jointly address the social determinants on health in a more cohesive manner. We would call upon development partners to recognize the value of ensuring that quality technical services is able to support countries particularly during the current global economic crisis, the increased demand for technical assistance by countries and areas from both the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and the World Health Organization, and the capacity technical assistance gaps that currently exist at the regional level, particularly in terms of tuberculosis.
WPR/RC62/NGO/1 page 2