Your Royal Highness,
On behalf of the World Health Organization, Regional Office for South-East Asia, it is my honour and privilege to warmly welcome Your Royal Highness.
I understand that the main purpose of the visit of Your Royal Highness is to discuss the progress made in implementing the workplan for collaboration between WHO and the Chulabhorn Research Institute – the WHO Collaborating Centre for Capacity Building and Research in Environmental Health Sciences and Toxicology.
Since Your Royal Highness’ last visit, we have successfully re-designated the Chulabhorn Research Institute a WHO Collaborating Centre. This will be the Institute’s fourth term as a WHO Collaborating Centre, marking more than fifteen years of productive collaboration.
Collaboration with the Chulabhorn Research Institute extends across all levels of the Organization, from country level to the regional level and on to headquarters in Geneva. WHO holds its collaboration with the Chulabhorn Research Institute in the highest regard.
Your Royal Highness,
Environmental health science and toxicology are subjects of fundamental importance to the health of all people in our Region.
The range of areas where we must act is broad – clean water and sanitation; affordable and clean energy with its links to air pollution; decent work; sustainable cities and communities; responsible consumption and production of chemicals and pesticides; and climate change.
But tackling environmental risks is essential if we are to achieve the goal of good health and well-being for all.
Addressing the environmental determinants of health will save an estimated 3.8 million premature deaths each year in our Region alone. Treating the diseases caused by environmental risks, without tackling the source of the problem – whether it be poor air quality, or contaminated water – is neither smart nor sustainable.
WHO is strongly committed to empowering its Member States and the health sector in the Region to develop strong public health standards; to support health promotion; and to collaborate with other sectors to carry out evidence-based assessments of health risks and optimize development choices.
We are privileged that Your Royal Highness maintains such an active personal interest in health and environment, and that Your Royal Highness is committed to regularly reviewing our collaboration so that it remains of the highest benefit to the Organization.
The progress WHO and the Chulabhorn Research Institute have made in implementing our agreed workplan, which we reviewed here today, in the presence of Your Royal Highness, confirms the great value that our collaboration with the Chulabhorn Research Institute brings to WHO’s work.
The discussions held support the need for our continued collaboration. I request the consent of Your Royal Highness to complete the activities as agreed in our workplan as we also seek to build and identify potential future activities to address air pollution. If consented to, these activities will be formally considered when we commence the development of a new workplan in mid-2021.
I sincerely thank Your Royal Highness for visiting the Regional Office and for actively supporting our joint collaboration.