United Nations Radio

UN Secretary-General at ECOSOC meeting

Narrator: The Economic and Social Council, also known as ECOSOC, is holding its Substantive Session from 6 to 31 July 2009 in Geneva. The Session began on Monday, with what's known as the High-level Segment of ECOSOC. The high-level segment is made up of ministers and executive heads of international institutions, who, along with civil society and private sector representatives, discuss key issues on the international agenda. The first such issue is health.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his opening speech began with a grim message -- he noted that higher food prices in 2008 reversed the nearly two-decade trend in reducing hunger:

SG: Momentum to reduce overall poverty in the developing world is also slowing. Tens of millions of people have been pushed into joblessness and greater vulnerability.  Some countries stand to miss their poverty reduction target.

Narrator: And poverty leads to poor health. The Secretary-General spoke about the health-related millennium development goals and some of the gaps that still exist in achieving them:

SG: Children's health shows mixed results. Some countries in sub-Saharan Africa have achieved significant success with key child survival interventions. These are expected to produce further decline in under-five mortality over the next few years. But many countries both in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have made little or no progress at all.

Narrator: The Secretary-General is especially concerned about maternal health:

SG: One woman dies every minute in childbirth. Ninety nine percent of these deaths are in the developing world. This should be unacceptable for all of us and a rallying cry for action.

Narrator: Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, says problems like the food crisis, the financial crisis, climate change and pandemic influenza will deepen the misery and worsen the health of people and countries that already suffer the most:

Chan: Too many models for development assumed that living conditions and health status would somehow automatically improve when countries modernized, liberalized their trade, and experienced rapid economic growth. But this did not happen. Instead, differences, within and between countries, in income levels, in opportunities, and in health status, are greater today than at any time in recent history.

Narrator: Dr. Chan has a number of suggestions. First, she says, we must maintain the current momentum for better health:

Chan: Second, the strengthening of health systems must stay at the top of the global health agenda. And finally, we must make the prevention and control of chronic non-communicable diseases and the improvement of maternal health top priorities on the development agenda.

Narrator: Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization.

Producer: Gerry Adams
Duration: 3'10"