New Zealand’s former prime minister Jacinda Ardern has spoken at the opening of the World Health Organisation's 76th assembly in Geneva.
The World Health Assembly, the decision-making arm of WHO, is meeting from May 21 to 30. It has delegates represented from around the world attending.
There are currently five Ministry of Health attendees at the WHO Assembly, including Dr Diana Sarfati, who was appointed to the role of director-general of health and chief executive of the Ministry of Health in November 2022, having acted in the role since July 2022.
In his welcome speech, director-general of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, applauded Ardern’s leadership.
“My thanks to Your Excellency former Prime Minister Ardern, for your leadership in global health, and especially for your humble leadership. That’s what we want from all our leaders – humble leadership. Thank you so much for being the model of that.”
Ardern’s 10-minute speech elaborated on her experience co-leading the Covid-19 pandemic response alongside advisers Dr Ashley Bloomfield and Dame Juliet Ann Gerrard.
"My name is Jacinda Ardern, I’m currently between jobs," she began.
"But my last role was to hold the privileged position of being the 40th prime minister of New Zealand.
"There is much I learned from the experience – mistakes we made, things we got right. Not all of it will be relevant here but much of it was.
"That’s because like so many here, I held my role during Covid-19."
She said there were others "better placed to analyse this recent shared experience of a global pandemic".
“All I can reflect is just how accurate your prescribed approach is to building a healthier future. Science, solutions and solidarity."
Ardern paid tribute to Bloomfield, the director-general of health at the time, as well as her chief science adviser Gerrard.
She said there was an "outpouring of gratitude for what the world’s health practitioners have done for us and yet there was, on the other hand, utter vilification of them".
"Those who give the most to protecting our health and wellbeing should not pay with their sense of safety and security.".
She reflected on the "difficult, unprecedented" task of managing the pandemic and thanked the WHO for its resources and helping to create foundations for "trust and respect of health, science and ultimately, of solutions".
"In the aftermath of crisis, we have not just done something, we have done enough."
Five years after it began, the former prime minister speaks of her challenges and triumphs as New Zealand's premier. (Source: 1News)
Ardern resigned from her role as prime minister on January 19, saying her "utterly open and honest" reason for quitting was because she had "nothing left in the tank".
During her almost six-year tenure as prime minister, Ardern received death threats and abuse but said that wasn't why she resigned.
"When I look back on my five years in office, my memory isn't of being treated poorly or being attacked or feeling unsafe.
"My memories are of the women who randomly, from nowhere, just made me a cup of tea at the airport. The people who pass notes down a plane to just encourage me to keep going, the random strangers who keep sending me flowers, even since I've left, just to tell me they appreciated me, and the screeds of letters I get from kids.
"Were there people who wished me harm? Yes. Did I feel like, at any moment, that I was at risk? I felt well cared for."
Ardern said that behaviour was unacceptable but that didn't mean people could not disagree.
"But I will miss the people. I'll miss having a reason to go and speak with schools or to meet with people doing incredible things. I'll miss my colleagues, they're wonderful people. I just think New Zealand is so lucky, the people who work in the public service are incredible.
"But I won't miss the weight, because it is heavy."
Post pandemic era
The assembly marks the WHO's 75th anniversary, and its theme is the WHO at 75: Saving lives, driving health for all.
"In 2020, I described Covid-19 as a long, dark tunnel. We have now come out the end of that tunnel," Ghebreyesus said in his welcome speech yesterday.
“The end of Covid-19 as a global health emergency is not just the end of a bad dream from which we have woken. We cannot simply carry on as we did before.
“This is a moment to look behind us and remember the darkness of the tunnel, and then to look forward, and to move forward in the light of the many painful lessons it has taught us."
“Chief among those lessons is that we can only face shared threats with a shared response.”
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