FAO at the 77th World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization

The 77th World Health Assembly (WHA77) was held from the 27 May to 1 June at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, focusing on the theme of “All for Health, Health for All”. The FAO Delegation to the WHA was composed of Dominique Burgeon, Director of the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva (LOG), Julio Pinto, Animal Health Officer, FAO Animal Production and Health Division (NSA), Xiaoyi Wang, Liaison Specialist, LOG, and Trudy Wijnhoven, Nutrition Officer, FAO Food and Nutrition Division (ESN). FAO contributed to discussions on various agenda items and participated in a selected number of side events.

FAO statements during the WHA77
The FAO delegation to the WHA, in close coordination with concerned technical units in headquarters, actively contributed to the discussions on health issues closely linked to agrifood systems transformation, notably with four statements prepared and delivered on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), nutrition, healthy diets, and collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), which are all available on the WHA website.

Under the Item 3 general discussion of the plenary meeting, FAO highlighted the importance of the One Health approach as part of agrifood systems transformation, its support to the Pandemic Fund implementation partnering with WHO, and the launch of RENOFARM, a ten-year initiative to Reduce the Need for Antimicrobials on Farms for Sustainable Agrifood Systems Transformation. [Full statement here]

Under Item 11.2 Follow-up to the political declaration of the third high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, FAO underscored that eating a healthy diet throughout life is critical for preventing all forms of malnutrition and diet-related non-communicable diseases, which are currently the number one cause of mortality globally. [Full statement here]

Under Item 11.8 Antimicrobial resistance: accelerating national and global response, FAO welcomed the WHO Strategic and operational priorities to address drug-resistant bacterial infections in the human health sector, 2025-2035, pointing out that the antimicrobial resistance pandemic poses a serious global concern that cannot be addressed within one specific sector, and that we must collaborate across the One Health spectrum and engage the whole of society. [Full statement here]

Under Item 15.2 Maternal, infant and young child nutrition, FAO commended WHO for its biennial report on the comprehensive implementation plan on maternal, infant and young child nutrition, noting that, aligning action toward this vision for nutrition, FAO’s mission in nutrition is to tackle malnutrition in all its forms by accelerating impactful policies and actions across agrifood systems to enable healthy diets for all. [Full statement here]

Other FAO engagements during the WHA77
FAO participated and intervened in a great number of side events in the margin of the World Health Assembly. Dominique Burgeon, LOG Director, participated in the WHA partnership event titled “From Crisis to Opportunity: Health in the Eastern Mediterranean Region” on 25 May 2024, at the invitation of the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean. The event aimed to create opportunities to make strong progress on the three regional flagship initiatives of improving access to medicines, medical products and diagnostics; reversing the brain drain and building a resilient 21st century health workforce; and tackling the concerning levels of substance use in the Region.

Julio Pinto participated as panelist in the Soft Launch of the AMR Global Legislators report and a close-door roundtable on AMR organized by the Wellcome Trust. The FAO delegation participated in the Pandemic Fund High-Level Roundtable organized by WHO and the World Bank, as well as Strengthening PHC: Combining Immunization and Nutrition to Improve Children’s Health. Moreover, as part of the WHA77 exhibition, LOG, in close coordination with NSA, organized an exhibit stand at the Serpent Bar of the Palais des Nations for the Quadripartite AMR Multi-stakeholder Partnership Platform, which drew a lot of attention from the participants, raising questions on the work of the AMR Platform and how to join.

At the Soft Launch of the AMR Global Legislators report and the close-door roundtable on AMR organized by the Wellcome Trust, Julio Pinto highlighted that the AMR Partnership Platform, established by the Quadripartite - FAO, UNEP, WHO, and WOAH - and hosted by FAO on its behalf, with its solid, diverse, and rich network of stakeholders’ expertise, skills, and resources, can be a mechanism to help build shared understanding while mobilizing a global force to drive action for AMR. The Platform has a solid research and academia cluster that could support the work on establishing the Independent Panel on Evidence for Action on AMR. It was also noted that the AMR Global Legislators report would benefit from a more comprehensive depiction of the critical role of agrifood systems as part of the solution.

At the Pandemic Fund High-Level Roundtable, the representative from Indonesia advocated for concluding the Pandemic Agreement negotiations, ensuring equitable access to medical countermeasures, technologies, and know-hows, turning private good (i.e. Intellectual Property rights) into public good temporarily in time of health emergencies. The US echoed the need for an integrated approach between the Pandemic Fund and the upcoming Pandemic Agreement, highlighting budget constraints and the necessity for co-financing of new donors and the private sector. The EU focused on closing the trust gap with regional manufacturing in places like Africa, emphasizing better preparedness, prevention, and strong international rules. Botswana highlighted the importance of leveraging non-governmental resources to address significant health financing gaps.

FAO also participated in the WHA side event on “Strengthening PHC: Combining Immunization and Nutrition to Improve Children’s Health”, chaired by Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Coordinator, Afshan Khan, and focusing on the role of combined services in strengthening Primary Health Care (PHC), and sharing best practices based on their past and current experience with Integrated Nutrition Immunisation (INI) programming.

WHO’s World Health Assembly
The World Health Assembly is the decision-making body of WHO. It is attended by delegations from all WHO Members and focuses on a specific health agenda prepared by the Executive Board. The main functions of the World Health Assembly are to determine the policies of the Organization, appoint the Director-General, supervise financial policies, and review and approve the proposed programme budget. The Health Assembly is held annually in Geneva, Switzerland.