Dr. Frank Underwood, Chair of the Pacific Islands Regional Multi-Country Coordinating Mechanism.

Mr. Manab Basnet, The Global Fund Portfolio Manager and the GF team.

Distinguished delegates from Pacific Island countries, Oversight Technical Group members and Technical working group members of PIRMCCM.

Colleagues.

Bula vinaka and Pacific greetings to you all on behalf of UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji.

I am delighted to be here this morning to deliver UNDP remarks on behalf of UNDP Multi Country Western Pacific Programme.

I would like to begin today by reconfirming UNDP’s commitment to the effective and strategic management of the Multi-Country Western Pacific Programme through: stronger partnerships, ensuring services including lifesaving medicines are accessible to key and vulnerable populations and to strengthen health service delivery systems, exchanging of lessons learned and effective coordination.

This will help to ensure our ultimate objective – that no one is left behind in the Pacific - when it comes to fighting HIV, TB and Malaria.

The Pacific has made remarkable progress against its’ health targets, including communicable diseases such as HIV, TB and malaria in 11 Pacific Island countries. However, progress has not benefited everyone equally and this is one of our challenges. Some population groups remain left behind in some countries, even in the countries that have the most robust health systems in place.

The disruption to the delivery of essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic further impeded progress towards achieving health targets.

As we move forward in the post-COVID era, it is critical that we work together to strengthen our partnerships, take time to examine and learn from our lessons, challenges  and experiences to date, and improve our service delivery models and systems.

This is why the 2023 annual meeting of the regional governance mechanism is so important, because it provides the time and space to come together - face to face after many years of working together remotely – and to take a deep dive into the operational realities that you face every day so together you can examine the opportunities and the challenges, clarify roles and responsibilities, and together identify ways to improve our operating systems, structures and processes so that we can better serve the people that need our assistance.

Allow me to use one example of how we can work together to improve our systems comes from Vanuatu. Where I understand that we have been able to map out the cash transfer process in Vanuatu that has led to significant improvements in the timeline for accessing funding. I hope we can continue to identify new and better ways to manage our risks and unlock bottlenecks while delivering on our mandates.

As the world comes together to recover and tackle the challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to also reflect and learn from our experiences in the Pacific to improve our preparedness so that essential services and operations can continue to respond ensuring protection to people living with TB, HIV and ML as well as other diseases or health conditions in the region.

The COVID-19 Pandemic as a health emergency diverted attention away from the pathway and target as of ending HIV. As we gather at this important meeting as the Pacific region, there is an opportunity to strategize and get back on track and accelerate progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal 3 on good health and well-being.

Ladies and Gentlemen, over 84.2 million people have become infected with HIV, and over 40.1 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the global AIDS epidemic.

In the Western Pacific, the estimated number of people living with HIV reached 1.9 million in 2020 in comparison to 1.4 mill in 2010. The increase if cases and prevalence is an indication for the importance of renewed and concerted efforts in tackling HIV. We must examine where and why new cases arise and ensure that everyone’s human rights are respected including protection from SGBV, access to health and justice, and advocacy at all levels. We need to ensure that the right laws, policies and systems are in place.

Similarly, TB remains a public health issue despite the success achieved in reducing the mortality and morbidity of TB over the years.  The Western Pacific Region accounts for 18 percent of the Global TB burden. TB remains a significant public health challenge, including missing cases, drug-resistant TB, a huge pool of latent TB, slow uptake of innovations, and lack of multi-sectoral action to address the catastrophic costs faced by TB patients and their families.

COVID-19 increased the populations vulnerability and exposure to these diseases including Malaria.  The Western Pacific Region did not achieve the Global Technical Strategy 2020 milestones for malaria morbidity or mortality, and in 2021 case incidence and the mortality rate were off target by 53% and 51%, respectively. Between 2015 and 2021, case incidence increased by 10% and the mortality rate by 4%.

This calls for a more precise focus to reach the people most affected and at risk for TB, HIV and ML  to address inequities. This will promote synergies under a universal health coverage and primary health care framework and contribute to achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Importantly, the PIC countries need to get back on track following the challenges of Covid-19 to achieve the ‘END TB Strategy’ and ‘Global AIDS Strategy’ targets for 2025 and 2030. It would be most unfortunate to not reach and pass the crossing line to win this battle.

In closing, I would like to say that UNDP is honoured to be the Principal Recipient of the GF grant since 2015 and to acknowledge that we are on this journey together. I would like to extend my deepest gratitude and appreciation to all the partners in this work. The ministries of health across the 11 Pacific Island Countries, members of civil society, PRIMCCM members and its leadership and our sister UN agency WHO for the strong partnership over the years. You are the real drivers of this work. Together we celebrate our successes but also pause and take stock of any challenges, lessons learnt and new/emerging opportunities with the view to enhance the results of the work under Global Fund in the Pacific.

My remarks would not be complete without acknowledging the tremendous technical and financial support from the Global Fund. Without the Global Fund’s critical critical investments, the work we do together would not have been possible.

Let us continue to work hand in hand with towards achieving the Universal Health Coverage and positively impacting to the lives of people in the Pacific.

I wish us all a very productive workshop.

Thank you and vinaka vakalevu.