PRESIDENT Jakaya Kikwete yesterday chaired his first meeting of United Nations Secretary General’s High Level Panel on the Global Response to Health Crises.
The meeting is taking place at the Office of the Secretariat of the United Nations Secretary General’s High – Level Panel on the Global Response to Health Crises Conference Room on the North Lawn Building of the UN headquarters, where a temporary office has been set aside for President Kikwete.
The president, who arrived in New York yesterday morning, will chair this first meeting of the Panel for the next four days following the decision by United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, to appoint an independent High-Level Panel on the Global Response to Health Crises last month.
Other members of the panel include Mr Celso Luiz Nunes Amorimo, former Minister of Foreign Relations (1993-1994 and 2003-2010) and Defence Minister of Brazil; Ms Micheline Calmy-Rey, former President of the Swiss Confederation and Mr Marty Natalegawa, former Foreign Minister of Indonesia and its Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.
Others are Ms Joy Phumaphi, Executive Secretary of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance and Botswana’s former Minister for Health and Minister for Lands and Housing and Mr Rajiv Shah, until January this year, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Panel members, appointed in the individual capacity, have been tasked by the UN Secretary General to make recommendations on how to strengthen national and international systems to prevent and manage future health crises taking into account lessons learned from the response to the outbreak of Ebola virus disease.
The secretary general decided to appoint the panel following the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa, which escalated to become one of the largest global public heath crises in recent history, claiming thousands of lives and sickening many more with the devastating social-economic impacts.
The spread of the disease in the epicentre countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone has highlighted the importance and urgency of strengthening the architecture and management of global heath crises in order to better address future outbreaks.
Before their first meeting, panel members were meeting Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who has asked the panel to submit periodic progress reports and present its final report to him at the end of December. He will then make the report available to the General Assembly and undertake further action as appropriate.
In carrying out its work, the panel will undertake a wide range of consultations, with representatives from the affected areas and communities, the UN system, multilateral and bilateral financial institutions and regional development banks.
Others are non-governmental organisations (NGOs), countries supporting the response effort, other member states, health care providers, academic and research institutions, private sector and other experts.
The UN is providing a small secretariat for the panel, which can also draw on the resource group of senior and leading experts, which is to provide specialised advice to the panel on technical and other issues as required.
Following this first meeting, the panel will set out its working methods and programme of work, in consultation with the UN Secretary-General.
The panel is expected to hold a meeting every six weeks, with three meetings taking place in New York, one at UN offices in Switzerland, one at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa and one field meeting in the Ebola-affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
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