Remarks at the Eighth Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentarian Forum on Global Health

Welcome to the eighth meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentarian Forum on Global Health and to beautiful Vanuatu. We extend our gratitude and appreciation to our host, the National Parliament of Vanuatu, for its hospitality and generosity in making this meeting possible. Thank you.

Today, I also have the pleasure and honour of greeting and acknowledging the new President of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentarian Forum on Global Health, Honourable Dr Jiho Cha. Sir, you are welcomed by us all in your new role as the President of this Forum.

It's a privilege and a pleasure for me to be here this morning at my first Asia-Pacific Parliamentarian Forum on Global Health as the WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific. I have attended many meetings in my capacity as a politician and a Minister of Health from Tonga. And it's a privilege for me this morning, after sitting like you, a parliamentarian for many years, now I'm standing here to welcome you all and to ask for your support to WHO and the Region on global health issues that will affect our health care delivery.

As parliamentarians, you have a unique role in formal national leadership. Through country governance structures and acting collectively as members of parliament in each of your countries, you make laws, you approve budgets, and keep governments accountable. Your role is shifting and growing in complexity.

A recent United Nations Global Parliamentary Survey shows three main trends of current global parliamentary development:

Do you feel the impact of that reality in your country? In your parliament? How engaged do you feel in law-making? How well equipped are you to analyse, scrutinize and vote upon laws to advance health system priorities?

This Forum exists to encourage a peer-to-peer exchange of information and experience, to provide a brief respite from briefings, constituency and political party business, the media cycle and the many other commitments you fulfil every day. For just a few days, you are here together to hear more about the health workforce, to be informed and motivated by the experiences of regional peers. To make connections and receive ideas which may inspire you as leaders and health system champions.

Some of you have health backgrounds. Some are Ministers of Health. Some had a business background before entering parliament. Some rose through the ranks of community leadership. Each one of you is different. But what can parliamentarians, in all your diversity, do to support the domestic and regional health workforce?

We know we must look beyond the health sector. Put simply, whatever your background, political affiliation, years in parliament or current sector involvement, you can help. There is a need for involvement and oversight by decision makers and holders of power in all sectors. Parliaments, parliamentary committees, cabinets and governments are multi-sectoral. They can act and intervene in all sectors and provide a bridge between them.

Adequate health financing is crucial to educate, train, equip, house and deploy a health workforce. Parliaments approve budgets which can prioritize health system functioning and invest in the education, facilities, equipment and logistics to make this possible.

Over the next three days, you will hear about the challenges, the opportunities, the innovations and the realities facing the region and its member countries now and into the future. You will hear details from the Regional Framework to Shape a Health Workforce for the Future of the Western Pacific Region, which was endorsed by Member States in October 2023.

You will visit Vanuatu health facilities and meet some of the incredible men and women who work in them, and, most crucially, you will have opportunities to share your own country experiences and hear from your peers. You will deepen your understanding of the invaluable asset a well-functioning workforce represents to the health systems and to the communities it serves.

And when you return to your countries and your parliaments, and you use your functions as lawmakers, approvers of budgets, and local and national representatives and leaders to improve stewardship and governance, to legislate, to educate, to strengthen, to equip and to enable, we hope you will discover that, through your work, you too are part of the broader health workforce.

I wish you all a successful three-day meeting.

Thank you.