[Please check against delivery]
Thank you Lorenzo, and good afternoon everyone!
We wanted to start with the short video you saw a few moments ago, because it makes clear just what is at stake when we talk about air pollution, climate change, and health.
As the woman in the opening scene said, “We all breathe every day” – yet far too many people in Viet Nam, and around our Region, breathe air which is fundamentally unsafe.
The issue of air pollution highlights a truth which is at the heart of the Summit discussions this week: the health of the climate and the health of human beings are inextricably connected.
This means that the climate crisis is fundamentally a health crisis, and so the response has to be a health response, built in close partnership with other sectors.
This is why the partnership we are formally launching today is so important to us at WHO: because it will help us to address this most fundamental of challenges, through bringing together the disciplines of health, finance and risk management to address the growing gap between climate risks, and the protection people and health systems need.
This matters in Viet Nam, because it is one of the countries most vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change.
As well as the profound challenge of air pollution as we saw profiled in the video, Viet Nam also faces more extreme heat, more frequent extreme weather events such as typhoons and flooding, and worrying changes in patterns of climate-sensitive disease.
The health – and economic – consequences are already clear.
Air pollution alone contributes to at least 70,000 deaths in Viet Nam each year, and economic losses of more than US$13 billion annually – close to 4% of the country’s GDP.
Typhoon Yagi in 2024 damaged almost 500 health facilities, disrupting essential health service delivery, injured 2000 people, and claimed 320 lives.
And we currently face a prolonged outbreak risk for dengue – following the more than 180,000 cases and 43 deaths that were recorded in the country last year – as patterns of transmission becomes much less predictable over time.
Each of these data points speaks to lives lost or damaged, families and communities affected, and productivity undermined.
And that’s why this partnership matters: because reducing long‑term risk and building resilience leads to healthier and more resilient (as well as more productive) populations, which is what the work we will do together is all about.
While we’re initially focused on Viet Nam, I’m also personally very excited to see how this work can become a model for others – not just in the ASEAN region but beyond.
I want to conclude by connecting the discussions happening at the Summit in Singapore this week with another very big and important gathering happening at the same time: the World Health Assembly in Geneva.
When the WHO Director-General Dr Tedros opened the Assembly on Monday, he said that we live in difficult, dangerous and divisive times, but through working together – that is, WHO, our Member States, and our partners – we will walk the road of change.
“It’s the road that leads to the destination that [the founders of WHO] set 78 years ago: the highest attainable standard of health, not as a luxury for some, but a right for all.”
At WHO, our commitment to this partnership is rooted in a very deep conviction that the work we will do together – towards cleaner air, and better protection from climate-related health risks – will help to realize this aspiration for the people of Viet Nam and beyond.
So let me end by again thanking the Prudence Foundation and WHO Foundation for your support, and all of you for being here.
Thank you very much.