The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this 61st session of the World Health Assembly with its emphasis on ends and means.

Ends in the sense of reviewing progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and means in terms of the partnerships which will be essential if the great and growing gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ is to be addressed.

Quite apart from any other indicators, those of us who have spent their working lives in public health know only too well that the larger the gap between rich and poor in any country, the poorer will be the public’s health overall.

It is now six months since we in the International Federation sat with many of you in the 30th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

I won’t go over familiar ground from that Conference, but it is important to restate now the unanimous conclusion of governments and Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies sitting together as equal partners that public health challenges, especially those associated with emergent or recurrent diseases, are at the very top of the world’s humanitarian priority list.

We also agreed, in the final Declaration “Together for Humanity”, that these challenges are now at a scale which is beyond the coping capacity of any single organisation, even a government.

An overarching priority for those at our International Conference was to identify partnership opportunities which could bring support quickly to those who need it most.

Our 186 National Societies and your representatives from 194 governments responded to the deep concern that people everywhere, especially the poorest of the poor, face a burden, especially a health burden, which seems to increase every day.

There are many factors, such as the rise in the humanitarian consequences of the number and scale of natural disasters, of environmental challenges including climate change, of migration, of violence, of conflict, and more.

My purpose in mentioning this now is to express our appreciation to the World Health Organisation for its readiness to embark on work together to address these challenges in a strong and meaningful way.

May 11, 2008, marks exactly three years since the signing of our letter of partnership with WHO. We have related agreements with five of the six WHO regional arms, and hope to work towards the conclusion of the final agreement soon.

This is all evidence of the way we share the Director-General’s conclusion that the challenges facing the world are such that we must commit ourselves to working together if the challenges are to be overcome.

The basis of our cooperation is our complementary approach to vulnerability to disease as a major cause of poverty, just as poverty itself is a major contributor to vulnerability to disease.

Threats to public health compromise the productivity and productive potential of individuals, communities and entire nations.

That basis is, however, translated into operationally focused action. We are very pleased to have found that WHO, like us, is interested in agreements for what they do, not just what they say. Our work is based on action, not promises.

Our agreements have their real impact at the national level. At the IFRC, we are particularly grateful to WHO for its readiness to support partnership action between Ministries of Health and National Societies acting as auxiliaries to the public authorities in the humanitarian field.

This auxiliary role was examined in detail at the 2007 International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and governments committed themselves to working with their National Societies on developing comprehensive partnerships to address their prioritized health challenges.

This programming and prioritising is now discussed annually at the International Federation at a Global Health Forum, held each year just before the World Health Assembly.

Some of the participants in the Assembly today were present at the Forum last week, and they will have heard the strength and vigour of the commitments signaled there.

They will also have seen the signature of our most recent bilateral agreement, between WHO-EURO and the IFRC. It is our hope that we will finalise this formal work with an agreement with the Western Pacific regional office by next year.

The ‘how’ is thus becoming well established. The challenge is to show results.

We, like you, live with the Millennium Development Goals in front of us.

We, like you, have a desperate sense that time is flying past and that things are getting worse, not better.

At other opportunities during this Assembly, various of my colleagues will contribute specific examples of action.

These contributions will illustrate the value of the community level engagement which is provided by governments working closely with their National Society counterparts and their networks of trained volunteers.

For example:

• The impact of volunteers and communities when distributing insecticide-treated bednets. Distribution is only part of the story – to be effective, bednets must be hung properly and used effectively.

This is made a direct and successful contribution to the achievement of MDG Goal 6 in those countries which have taken part, and has had a public health impact on other disease threats as well.

• In the Pacific, we are seeing our National Societies develop our community-based first aid scheme, in some cases designated as the official provider of this education and service,and extend the scheme to be the community-based health and first aid scheme, using primary health care principles of “health by the people” , the very basis of our Global Health and Care Strategy, with huge potential to empower women (Goal 3), reduce child mortality (Goal 4), improve maternal health (Goal 5) while also helping to combat disease such as HIV and malaria by basic health promotion.

Last week, we dedicated our Global Health Forum to our far-sighted forebears whose Declaration of Alma Ata 30 years ago tapped into that well-spring of health, the community.

It is important to recall that Declaration today, and to add to it the importance of full community involvement in the design, implementation and monitoring of public health programs.

That is why we gave the Forum the theme “Primary Health Care Health starts with people” and we were honoured by the presence of Dr Mahler, who is of course a former WHO Director General and the architect of the Alma-Ata Declaration.

Chair, the importance of community involvement in public health work is visible to all of us every day, but human tragedies like those now burdening Myanmar and China as well as the constant presence of disease threats and food insecurity in Africa underline the point dramatically.

They also show that it is only possible to manage an effective set of programs if they are entirely free of any form of discrimination, if they include meaningful gender perspectives, and if they are well-funded on a multi-year basis.

The value of volunteer engagement is obvious to us all from the television news, but we must remember that the lesson about the importance of volunteers is not relevant only at times of sudden onset disasters.

Public health is today threatened by the consequences of the growing gap between rich and poor within countries and between countries.

We bring to our partnerships at global and national levels the opportunity to look forward with hope to a world where sustainable communities can coexist in an atmosphere of peace and security, caring for the communities as a whole and for the most vulnerable people within them.

This is natural for us in the Red Cross and Red Crescent because it flows so easily from the fundamental principles of our Movement, especially those of humanity, independence and impartiality.

Partnerships with the IFRC and its National Societies add that value to your programs, and we encourage all governments to put their commitments, those which they endorsed last November at our International Conference, into practice today.

As you will have gathered from my accent and my orientation, I come from one of the very special small countries on the other side of the world.

The Maori have a saying “ Nau te rourou, naku te rourou, ka ora te manuhiri”. This can be translated as “ With your “basket” of knowledge, skills and commitment, and my “basket” of knowledge, skills and commitment, the people will be cared for”.