TIME OUT FOR A DOSE OF REALITY

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Address at the 23rd Forum on Global Issues
Berlin, Germany
18 March 2009
The impact of global crises on health:
money, weather and microbes
Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization
http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/financial_crisis_20090318/en/index.html

Mr Silberberg, Secretary of State, members of parliament, members of the scientific community, representatives of industry and civil society, colleagues in public health, colleagues from sister organizations of the UN, ladies and gentlemen,

First and foremost, I would like to thank the organizers for the kind invitation to address this audience.

The world is in a mess, and much of this mess is of our own making. Events such as the financial crisis and climate change are not quirks of the marketplace, or quirks of nature. They are not inevitable events in the up-and-down cycle of human history.

Instead, they are markers of massive failure in the international systems that govern the way nations and their populations interact. They are markers of failure at a time of unprecedented interdependence among societies, capital markets, economies, and trade.

In short, they are the result of bad policies. We have made this mess, and mistakes today are highly contagious.

As the economists tell us, the financial crisis is unprecedented because it comes at a time of radically increased interdependence. Its effects have moved rapidly from one country to another, and from one sector of the economy to others.

The contagion of our mistakes shows no mercy and makes no exceptions on the basis of fair play. Even countries that managed their economies well, did not purchase toxic assets, and did not take excessive financial risks will suffer the consequences. Likewise, the countries that have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions will be the first and hardest hit by climate change.

The financial crisis and climate change are not the only markers of bad policies and failed systems of governance. The gaps in health outcomes, seen within and between countries, are greater now than at any time in recent history. The difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest countries now exceeds 40 years. Globally, annual government expenditure on health varies from as little as US$ 20 per person to well over US$ 6000.

Medicine has never before possessed such a sophisticated arsenal of tools and interventions for curing disease and prolonging life. Yet each year, nearly 10 million young children and pregnant women have their lives cut short by largely preventable causes.

Something has gone wrong.
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