At the special event at the margins of the CEI Summit dedicated to the endorsement of WHO “Roadmap for Health and Well-being in the Western Balkans (2021-2025)” Prime Ministers commit to facilitating health reform initiatives to accelerate closing sub region’s health gap with EU & attaining SDGs.
ENDORSEMENT REMARKS
Western Balkans AND PARTNERS’ STATEMENTS OF ENDORSEMENT
3 December 2021, Budva (Montenegro)
Message from the director of the SEEHN Secretariat Dr Mira Jovanovski Dasic at the CEI Special Event on endorsement of WHO Roadmap for the WB:
Your Excellency Mr Krivokapić, [Prime Minister of the Government of Montenegro]
Dear Dr. Kluge, WHO Regional Director, [Regional Office for Europe]
Dear Mr Antonione, [CEI Secretary General]
Your Excellences, Ladies and gentlemen
I feel honored today to address such a distinguished audience on behalf of the South Eastern-Europe Health Network.
In our jubilee year, when we celebrate 20 years of partnership action of the South-eastern Health Network, we welcome our gathering as a true expression of solidarity and unity as the only possible way forward to support our Western Balkans Member States in the current context of COVID-19: Together – in partnership for health and wellbeing.
We welcome the Roadmap for Health in Western Balkans as a robust and evidence-based pathway for our future joint and individual investments, policy, and action, where health is in the center of the economy of wellbeing.
Thus, we praise our Western Balkans Member States for endorsing the Roadmap. The Joint Statement of Action demonstrates a tangible expression of multilateralism and strong unity in action for closing the health gaps between the Member States in our Region.
We commit to fully support the implementation of the Roadmap as an active and strong partner in attaining the three strong and interlinked Roadmap’s objectives:
• Health is our crucial mandate, and we will continue working and advocating to position health high in our Region’s political and developmental agendas, most notably through our Ministerial Forums and Pledges. As we are approaching our 6th Ministerial Forum in 2022, we will base our priorities and actions for our Region on the Roadmap, and will further build synergies and cooperation with partners and advocate to increase and better focus investments because of boosting the Roadmap’s implementation
• Through our Regional Health Development Centers of excellence, we will continue working with the WHO Regional Office for Europe, European Union, Central European Initiative, RCC, and other bilateral partners and donors to increase outreach and support to our Member States in implementing the Roadmap reform initiatives in the key areas of action.
Your excellences, the SEEHN has been created based on solidarity and unity with a strong mandate for peace and stability through health as a neutral interface of action among many stakeholders.
Throughout the past 20 years, the South-Eastern Europe Health Network has offered an excellent platform for collective and harmonized action for health in our Region through our well-developed governance mechanisms. Today, with no less eagerness, we stand ready to join efforts to contribute and implement this ambitious but realistic Roadmap in the ultimate interest of our people’s wellbeing and closing the health gap in our Region.
