Honourable Chair, Distinguished Delegates,
I am speaking on behalf of the International Council of Nurses (ICN), which is part of the World Health Professions Alliance (WHPA), a coalition representing over 41 million dentists, pharmacists, nurses, physicians, and physiotherapists.
We support pre-WHA informal meetings, however, for a true exchange, more notice must be given, and the agenda items selection must be agreed between non-State actors (NSAs) and Member States.
After testing constituency statements at the 75th WHA, we strongly encourage consultation with NSAs before making a final decision on their implementation. The NSAs of WHPA have combined their statements for many years, however, the resources and time required to prepare constituency statements using the proposed processes is disproportionate to their impact. We believe that constituency statements should not prevent individual statements, must be efficiently organized and that the selection of agenda items must involve NSAs.
We also request that official WHA side events are kept. These events are useful platforms for NSAs to engage and collaborate with Member States and WHO, exchanging expertise on technical matters.
We understand the complexity of WHO governing bodies and reiterate our commitment to support WHO to improve NSA involvement with these.