Inaugural Global Health Policy Summit

Distinguished guests,

Many of you here today may be asking a logical question: What is she doing here? Isn’t she the UNESCO Special Envoy for Education? An advocate for the right to education for all? The one who believes that education is too precious to be interrupted? Whether by conflict or disaster, manmade or natural. Or to put it in medical terms, “the Education obsessive compulsive one”?

So let me explain.

When my dear friend, Ara, came to see me with this idea of a summit for health, I paused for a few seconds to think about such a platform where issues of health can be tackled in different ways and from different angles; Where innovative ideas and antidotes for endemic and epidemic diseases can be explored; Where new approaches for quality accessible healthcare can be shared.

As an advocate of the UN M.D.Gs, I have seen with my own eyes the profound and positive role that education can play in lifting people out of poverty and helping them participate in, and contribute to, society. I have also seen how closely education is linked to health.

And not just in the sense that a healthy body means a healthy mind. But also in the sense that improved education automatically improves health.

For example, basic education for young mothers dramatically raises the chances of their babies' survival. You will know that a child born to a literate mother is 50 percent more likely to live past the age of five. So never under-estimate the power of education. And that’s exactly why I am here.

I have been hugely impressed by the potential of the innovations that have been identified as part of the preparation for today’s meeting, many of which will be showcased today. In fact, this Summit bears many similarities to a hugely successful international education collaboration that we run in Qatar.

Now in its fourth year, WISE - the World Innovation Summit for Education - brings together over a thousand decision-makers and practitioners from all over the world to support, nurture and promote innovation in education. This isn’t just a productive annual forum, but is also a permanent global network for the exchange, development and refinement of ideas.

The success of WISE also reflects the active and innovative contributions that Qatar has made to the global-isation of higher education and research over the past two decades. At Qatar Foundation's Education City we have partnered with some of the world's foremost research universities to offer research education programs to students of almost ninety nationalities.

More recently, Qatar has embarked on an ambitious major reform programme for health. This is reflected in our National Health Strategy, which aims to develop, within Qatar, world-leading research, education and health programs and institutions such as the Sidra Medical and Research Centre.

Those of us gathered today at this Summit are from many diverse backgrounds and geographies, but we are all assembled here because we all know that many of the health issues we each face at home are in reality, global issues. I hardly need say that disease knows no borders - and neither can our efforts to coordinate and improve prevention and treatment.

The provision of quality and affordable health services is one of the most daunting challenges we face today. And the challenge goes further than the bounds of traditional healthcare programmes into preventative social policies and even beyond.

Innovation can perhaps provide answers to some of these challenges, but I feel it is important to stress that innovation can never lead us astray from the fundamental principles upon which we are all agreed; that health is a basic human right and the provision of an equitable, universal health service is the obligation on us that arises from that right.

We need to find new ways to tackle the global inequity arising from poor governance, pharmaceutical monopolies, corruption and again, lack of education.

These result in restrictions on access to affordable medicines - and the failure to support research into conditions that particularly affect the poor.

Looking to the future, I’m delighted to announce that next year’s Summit will take place in Doha with the support of Qatar Foundation.

Once again it will bring together health innovators and reformers from around the world to exchange ideas, learn from international experience and collaborate in developing the new solutions we so-urgently need.

We hope that this annual health summit will become a natural counterpart to our annual WISE event for the global education sector.

Today's summit represents the fruition of months of intensive work.

The seven reports published today, have been developed by international working groups, chaired by experts of the highest caliber. I will be interested to see how these reports are received today – and, more importantly, what changes we have made as a result by the next summit.

In the report on Primary care, I was particularly interested in the emphasis on prevention. In Qatar, we spend 10% of our 3 billion dollar annual budget on prevention, but this is not enough in a country with a tendency towards lifestyle diseases. We are committing to raising the proportion we spend on prevention – and next year we will have some new data to share with you.

So once again I would like to thank Lord Darzi for his dedication and commitment to launching this initiative.

He has made a powerful global commitment to supporting health reform and innovation.

I challenge all of you to do the same.