Health for All: Our Experts Reflect on WHO’s 75 Years of Impact

Just three years after World War II ended, leaders from 70 countries came together to sign an international pledge to protect global health. Since then, the World Health Organization (WHO) has played a crucial role in eradicating smallpox, reducing maternal mortality, leading the COVID-19 emergency response, and other historic breakthroughs.

“This anniversary belongs to all of us,” WHO’s Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told UN Member States at the start of the year. “This is our opportunity to tell our story and imagine our future. … It’s impossible to do justice to the work we are doing around the world. And none of it is possible without the people who make WHO what it is.”

From experts dedicated to beating malaria to leaders who promote cleaner cooking, I spoke with UN Foundation colleagues about health care as a human right and why Health for All — WHO’s rallying cry for World Health Day on April 7 — is a political and social choice.

When you think of a world where there is Health for All, what does it look like?

Martha Rebour, Executive Director of Shot@Life: To me, it means that children can learn and play, and adults can work and be able to take care of their families. It means household income that would otherwise go to pay for expensive health services can be used to take care of families, or even be saved. Communities can really thrive when resources don’t have to be diverted so much to take care of illness.

Patty Sanchez Bao, Senior Officer for Global Health at the UN Foundation: I grew up in Peru, so I come from a country in which Health for All would mean all people have access to basic primary health care — people living in the capital and people living in the more remote communities in the jungle or the highlands. It means that mothers like myself don’t have to worry about whether their kids will sleep through the night without getting bitten by a mosquito that transmits malaria. As a mother, it always touches me to think about what other children are exposed to in the world, and that they don’t have access to basic diagnostic and treatment tools that could save their lives. Living in America, I don’t have to worry about the same things for my daughter. Health for All means every single child in the world has the same access to care.

Jillene Connors Belopolsky, Chief of Staff and External Affairs for the Clean Cooking Alliance: I see a world where everyone is able to cook their meals using safe, clean-burning stoves and fuels without the risk of breathing toxic smoke or the need to walk for miles to collect firewood from increasingly degraded forests. Unfortunately today, this is not the case for 2.4 billion people, especially women and children, who are reliant on open fires, whose pollution causes harm to their health, environment, and the climate.

The world has witnessed many public health successes because people worked together. What’s the next public health win you’d like to see global cooperation achieve?

Elizabeth Thrush, Senior Officer for Polio & Immunization Advocacy at the UN Foundation: There is so much potential in harnessing global cooperation. Look at how the world came together to eradicate smallpox and how close we are to eradicating polio. While we are 99.99% of the way there, my goal is to see eradication to the finish line. And then I’d like to have those lessons learned from polio eradication — the infrastructure and all of the tactics to get to the last mile and reach children in the most vulnerable places — used to respond to the next disease, or used to eliminate measles, or used to prevent future pandemics.

Emile Dawisha, Senior Officer of Communications & Digital Media, United to Beat Malaria: Just this century, the mortality rate for malaria has been cut in half. Consider that malaria is an ancient disease that has been plaguing humankind for 10,000 years. That in itself is an incredible milestone. We really do feel like we can achieve malaria eradication in our lifetime. And the impact would not only be felt in the tens of millions of lives saved, but it also would unlock $2 trillion in economic benefit.

What will it take to make Health for All a reality?

Molly Moss, Senior Policy Associate for Global Health at the UN Foundation: There is a broad set of health workers — whether in labs working on diagnoses or in the field delivering immunizations to children — who are integral to helping us achieve all our health goals. New investments are needed to train more health workers to close the gap in the health workforce that we’re seeing, which is currently a global shortfall of 15 million people.

Martha: First, we have got to stop this neglect-panic cycle. That’s something we saw with COVID. We neglect the prevention and the investments we need to make, and then a pandemic happens, and we have to pour loads of money into it to react. As this pandemic is waning, I am really worried about investments going away when it’s so critical. We know this is not the last pandemic we will see. So it’s really important that the financial resources are there, and the planning is there. It’s not only a question of money. It’s human resources. Health care workers need to be fairly paid. In so many countries, it’s volunteer work or very minimal wages.

Underpinning all of that, there needs to be a recognition that health is wealth and that access to health services is a human right. If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that if we don’t protect the health of people around the world, we’re putting ourselves at risk.