55th Meeting of the Regional Director with WHO Representatives, WHO/SEARO, New Delhi, 8-12 November 2004

Opening Remarks by Dr Samlee Plianbangchang Regional Director, WHO/SEARO at the 55th Meeting of the Regional Director with the WHO Representatives WHO/SEARO, New Delhi 8-12 November 2004 Fifty-fifth Meeting of the Regional Director with the WHO Representatives, WHO/SEARO, 8-12 November 2004 Opening Remarks by Dr Samlee Plianbangchang Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, At the beginning, let me welcome you all to the 55th meeting of the Regional Director with WHO Representatives. This meeting is considered to be one of the very important meetings of the Regional Office. It is even more important in light of the overall policy on decentralization of WHO, and the decentralization strategy in our Region, in particular. We are moving along with the policy trend of the Organization. Countries are now becoming the main focus of WHO work, and our WHO country offices are assuming great importance in WHO collaboration with Member States. WHO representatives, as chief of the WHO mission in countries, have to shoulder a number of important responsibilities; this is to remind all of us that WRs are: � technical adviser to the Government of the country of their assignment in the area of health; � representatives of the WHO Director-General and the Regional Director; � playing a diplomatic and political role as Chief of the WHO country mission; � responsible for WHO programme development and management in their respective countries; � coordinating WHO global and regional activities at the country level; � providing the required technical and scientific information in all areas of health to the country; � responsible for resource mobilization for country health development; and � involved in the interagency coordination and cooperation, both within and outside the UN system. In this perspective, therefore, WHO representatives need to possess the quality of a health professional/expert, administrator/manager/ communicator/ coordinator, diplomat and even politician, as said by one of our former Directors-General. 2 While functioning as WHO staff members anywhere we must always keep in mind that we are international civil servants who have our own specific code of conduct as such. Most importantly, we have to be honest and loyal to the Organization, technically sound and neutral in our decisions and actions. One of the emergingly important challenges for us at the country level now is to deal with the issues involving conflicts of interest among groups, locally and/or internationally. It is indispensable that we work together very closely between the three levels of the Organization in tackling the issues of such nature at all stages. At all cost, we have to try staying neutral, approach the issue on a technically sound basis, and listen to all parties involved, including the media. It is a difficult task indeed, especially for WHO representatives when they are in between the conflicts. Whatever the situation is, the Regional Office is always ready to provide the required support and back up to WRs in such a situation. I am sure headquarters is also ready to help in every possible way. In any situation when WHO in the Region is involved, it is the Regional Director who primarily has to bear the responsibility. Colleagues, for this meeting, there are several interesting items on the agenda. Most of these relate to our decentralization strategy and WHO programme development and management. I would just like to mention a few things as a background to help our consideration of the subjects. The Regional Office staff heard me say this a few days ago at the Retreat, so please bear with me. Concerning decentralization in our Region, the elements of this strategy may be listed as follows: � to pursue effective implementation of WHO Country Cooperation Strategy (CCS); � to further operationalize WHO country focus and WHO specific country approach; � to implement the idea of horizontal collaboration among WHO country offices; � to pursue decentralization of certain regional and intercountry functions to the country level; and � to maintain the high proportion of budgetary resources in countries (75%). To provide critical support to the implementation of these decentralization elements, delegation of authority to WHO representatives is an important prerequisite. We have doubled such delegation since the beginning of this year. This delegation is not only in financial terms, but also in several other managerial aspects. At the same time, the Regional Office will have to pursue extensively the strengthening of WHO presence in countries, especially strengthening capability and capacity of WHO country offices. This is to ensure that these offices will be able to shoulder more burden due to this decentralization, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. 3 As we know, 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, therefore, direct WHO support to countries will be mostly planned and implemented in countries. Colleagues, in the management of WHO collaboration with countries in the Region, I would like to remind us that there are at least three main categories of WHO work: � Direct support to individual countries, � Normative work, and � Intercountry coordination. Certainly, there are some other things also to be carried out by us as part of our duty. As far as our work at country level is concerned, we are now pursuing our tasks so that our WHO country offices become really implementing offices as far as direct support to countries is concerned. In addition to direct support to countries, WHO country offices are also responsible for: � Coordinating all WHO activities at the country level; � Contribution to normative work, especially in providing/supplying the required information; � Promotion of intercountry cooperation through horizontal collaboration between or among WHO country offices; � Involvement in interagency coordination and cooperation at country level; and � Resource mobilization. In this connection, I should also mention that we will pursue our work in this direction so that the Regional Office becomes a strategic office, to be more effective in supporting WHO work at the country level. The strategic areas for Regional Office work will be: � Coordination of regional policy and strategy within the WHO global framework; � Performing normative work in coordination with headquarters 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 4 � Involvement in interagency coordination and cooperation, and resource mobilization at the regional level. Colleagues, in the areas of programme development, during this meeting, we will focus our attention on the biennial programme budget for 2006-2007. As far as we in the SEA Region are concerned, there are three main issues relating to this programme budget: � There is a proposal for total global budgetary increase of 12.8%. We need all Member States to support this proposal. � If we could get the above increase, WHO/SEAR would obtain about 9 million US$ more in Regular Budget for countries. Now, we need to come up with objective criteria for distributing this increased amount among countries in the Region. � ‘ICP II’ will cease to exist from the next biennium. We will have to work out its successor in order to protect intercountry activities and normative work in the Region. However, in this connection, a Regional Working Group on Budget Development, consisting of high level representatives from all countries, has been established. This is in pursuance of the recommendation of the 51st meeting of CCPDM, which was endorsed by the 57th session of the Regional Committee. The Working Group is now working on the above three issues. It met three times already and, we will keep all WRs informed of the progress. Colleagues, trends in decentralization, at both regional and global levels, necessitate unified programme planning and management in the Region, whereby the focus is on WHO activities at the country level. Joint Planning between WHO Regional Office and Country Office staff, with the inputs from concerned national authorities in terms of needs and requirements, will be of paramount importance. In this process, in principle, the country will tell us “what” and we will tell them “how”. This joint planning exercise should start now on the plans of action for the biennial programme budget 2006-2007. To pursue this exercise efficiently and effectively, there is a need for operational guidelines, which are clearly understood by all concerned staff members, at both country and regional levels. At the same time, we have to catch up and keep up-to-date with the new and future trends in the WHO global biennial programme budgeting process, of which we are a part and parcel. Furthermore, to ensure effective collaboration between WHO and individual Member States, we will have to review and strengthen the Government- WHO coordination mechanism. In this particular exercise, we have to keep in mind that such mechanism has to be commensurate with the quantum of resources and activities to be coordinated, not too extensive or insufficient. 5 I would like to underline the importance of this mechanism, which is to facilitate the management interface between the government and WHO. If it is appropriately developed, it will go a long way in promoting collaborative efficiency and goodwill; if not, it can contribute to conflicts and inefficiency in our work with the Member States. Colleagues, with liberal decentralization as we are pursuing now, monitoring, evaluation and oversight become very important management tools to protect the WHO Representative and his staff and WHO in the Region as a whole through ensuring transparency and accountability. Work of the Programme Planning and Coordination Unit in monitoring and evaluation of the programme budget, report of internal and external auditors, and monitoring and evaluation of specific programme areas by various technical units will be maximally utilized by the senior and executive management in the decision-making process. All in all, in our business, we have to ensure high-quality performance, transparency and accountability. All of us have absolute responsibility to help ensure these. In addition, an Internal Review and Technical Assessment Unit is now being established in the Regional Office to provide necessary information for executive decision-making. Care will be taken to ensure that the work of this unit will not duplicate or conflict with the work of the other concerned units, but, instead, supplement their work. For this meeting, WRs may have brought with them many issues in the areas of administration and finance for discussions and clarification with concerned units in Administration and Finance. Many of these issues may have arisen from the implementation of our decentralization strategy. I hope they will get satisfactory replies and responses on those issues. Colleagues, this is the Regional Director’s meeting with WRs, the WRs will have to play a key role in the conduct of the meeting. However, I would like to see the Regional Office staff members participating as resource persons, at least. There are many things we can learn together, from each other. This is a learning process, it is the best way for us to learn while pursuing our duties. Therefore, this meeting should be kept open, as much as possible. I personally do not think that we have anything to hide from each other. We should be open and frank in our association and interaction. While saying so, I must underline the importance of being positive and constructive in the course of our deliberations during this meeting and in our day-to-day functioning. Adopting this approach will help us go a long way in maintaining our integrity, the quality of having high moral principles and of being united. 6 All of us are working towards the same goal – the health and well-being of all people; and, no less important, for the reputation and credibility of WHO. Therefore, we should not let the differences among us constrain our course of action towards this goal. Finally, let me wish the meeting efficient and smooth proceedings; and successful conclusions. Furthermore, I wish all WRs and their spouses, if any, an enjoyable stay in Delhi. Thank you. Q:\RD-OFFICE\Speeches\2004\RD's speech-55th WR meeting- final.doc– 8 Nov. 04/1.15 pm