The forthcoming meetings of WHA and EB Tuesday, 14 April 2020

Intervention by

H. E. Mr. Javad Amin-Mansour

Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative f

The Islamic Republic of Iran

virtual meeting of WHO on the arrangements for

The forthcoming meetings of WHA and EB

Tuesday, 14 April 2020

Good Morning everybody,

I thank WHO secretariat for convening this virtual meeting to exchange views on the conduct of business for the upcoming World Health Assembly and the Executive Board.

It is obvious that holding the governing body meetings, scheduled for May 2020, in their traditional format is not feasible with the outbreak of Covid-19. At the same time, we conquer that ensuring continuity in WHO’s global health governance will promote international cooperation in responding to the COVID-19 outbreak through collective cooperation and inclusive action of all Member States.

We have carefully studied the concept note and the proposed way forward for adjusting the arrangements for the governing bodies meetings in May 2020. We understand the rationale for holding a virtual de Minimis WHA and EB and, generally speaking, agree with the proposed way forward.

At the same time, my delegation has several points to make:

We took note that the proposed virtual arrangements will impose no significant additional costs. It seems that the 3 hours foreseen for the forthcoming virtual meeting of the WHA is too short to meet the expectations and to include all comments and statements of the Ministers at this crucial time. It is important that the Ministers at WHA will focus on two important issues. The first one is reporting the latest developments and actions in their respective countries to contain and fight Covid-19. The second one is to highlight how to continue cooperation and promote solidarity at regional and global levels in light of multilateralism with the central role of the WHO. We believe that the outbreak of Covid-19 is a global challenge and needs global solidarity, cooperation, and collective response.

In this line, we support the proposal of Switzerland to develop and adopt a Ministerial Declaration on future cooperation on Covid-19. That will indicate the way forward and the political will of the international community on how to deal collectively with the Pandemic. The declaration could be made during the forthcoming session of WHA. There are also two questions, which need some response and clarifications from the secretariat.

a) In order to agree to put elections of the candidatures for membership in the Executive Board in the agenda of WHA, we need to know the latest situations of the candidacies and whether we have to go to voting. If yes, is there adequate tools and technology to facilitate voting in this virtual setting?

b) Given the fact that all Member States will participate in the forthcoming World Health Assembly with virtual proceedings from capitals and Geneva, is it technically possible to manage and participate in such meeting without difficulty? Can WHO secretariat facilitate that?

I thank you.