Speech on the reopening of the European Centre for Environment and Health

14 February 2012, Bonn, Germany

Minister Dr Röttgen, Minister Bahr, Lord Mayor Nimptsch, ladies and gentlemen,

It is my great privilege and pleasure to welcome you all to the reopening the expanded WHO European Centre for Environment and Health here in Bonn. It is a great honour to greet so many dignitaries, partners and colleagues on a happy occasion like this.

My special gratitude goes to the Federal Government of Germany for its decision to expand its partnership with WHO and for its outstanding and generous financial support to our consolidated work on environment and health.

The WHO European Centre for Environment and Health initially opened in 1991 with support from France, Italy and the Netherlands. After the closure of the offices in France and the Netherlands, the Government of Germany supported the establishment of the office in Bonn in 2001, complementing the work of the Rome office, which closed at the end of 2011. Following the signing of the new agreement last Monday in Copenhagen, this office becomes now the main reference for environment and health work in the entire European Region.

Environmental burden of disease

Nowadays, around 20% of the burden of disease in the WHO European Region is attributable to preventable environmental risks and exposures; this proportion increases to 34% for children under 15.

Ageing and longevity, urbanization, mobility, changing patterns of food production and consumption, water use, economic and political activities, occupational exposure, changes in land use and spatial planning, and changes in climate, biodiversity and the exploitation of natural resources, including energy, are the main environmental determinants of health. Consequently, public health interventions addressing those factors through primary disease prevention significantly influence human health and well-being.

Socioeconomic inequities and the current global economic downturn have a negative impact on progress in reducing environmental health risks. In all countries, irrespective of their wealth, people with low income and socially disadvantages are much more at risk from unhealthy environments than others.

Over the years, the Bonn office has coordinated the collection of scientific evidence on exposure to environmental risks and health effects to underpin policy-making.

For example, it estimated that each European citizen loses on average 8.6 months of life expectancy due to levels of air pollution higher than those recommended by WHO. It concluded that traffic-related noise accounts for over 1 million healthy years of life lost annually in western Europe. It found that inadequate housing accounts for over 100 000 deaths per year in the European Region.

Renewed European Centre for Environment and Health

Ladies and gentlemen,

Thanks to the additional funding from Germany, the Centre in Bonn now broadens its scope around four main areas, including climate change; exposure to key environmental risks (air, noise, chemicals, radiation, inadequate working conditions and housing); health intelligence and forecasting; and water and sanitation.
The four programmes newly established on these topics will strengthen work on the nature and magnitude of existing and emerging environmental health hazards, and will assist European countries in developing and implementing policies to address them.

With environmental emergencies increasing, the Centre will also boost its capacity for emergency preparedness, response and recovery, facilitating collaboration among countries and the transfer of experience.

The Centre will provide the evidence base needed by all of us to address environmental issues of relevance to human health and well-being in the 21st century. It has an important role in contributing the new European health policy, Health 2020, which is being developed by WHO in partnership with its Member States. This new policy framework, aiming at further improvement of health and longevity in Europe, working with and across all sectors, and primarily targeting the inequalities in this part of the world, identifies social and environmental determinants as the main drivers of ill health, resulting in a heavy burden of chronic and noncommunicable diseases.

The Centre has recently included this cross-cutting area among its priorities and will further strengthen it. A new WHO report, launched today, concludes that, in each country, the poor can be exposed to environmental risks five times more often than their wealthier peers.

International efforts to eradicate poverty and improve health, to stimulate green economies and to ensure sustainable development where human condition will improve in harmony with our natural and built surroundings will not succeed without a strong focus on the elimination of environmental hazards and responsible use of natural resources such as water, food and energy.

European environment and health process

During the last two decades and longer, the European Centre for Environment and Health has provided scientific and organizational support to the European process on environment and health initiated at the First Ministerial Conference in Frankfurt, Germany in 1989. This process has ensured political commitment from all countries to address environmental hazards and lead policy development and action. It brought together the health and the environment sectors in a strong partnership promoting cross-sectoral work with the full engagement of various stakeholders from all parts of society.

At the Fifth Ministerial Conference in Parma, Italy in 2010, for the first time in the history of the process, the 53 countries in the WHO European Region agreed to be measured against time-bound, concrete targets. Through the Parma Declaration, they pledge to provide equal access to healthy environments during the next decade by acting on the “key environment and health challenges of our time, including climate change, emerging issues and the effects of the economic crisis”.

This unique, robust commitment is bound to my new vision for the future of the European environment and health process oriented towards health in all policies, which gains a higher political profile through the direct engagement of government ministers within a newly established European Environment and Health Ministerial Board.

Partnership

Our vision of a healthy environment is holistic. Most environmental hazards are generated by sectors other than health, but are eventually translated into health costs.

All our environment and health programmes have longstanding collaboration with institutions active in the European Region: United Nations and international organizations such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); the European Commission and its agencies, including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and European Environment Agency (EEA); nongovernmental organizations; the mass media and foundations, as well as leading academic institutions and WHO collaborating centres. And these programmes continue exploring opportunities for new partnerships based on shared health values and objectives.

I want to expressly mention on this occasion our special partnership with Germany, whose vision has made possible the continuation and the renewal of our work on environment and health. This refers not only to increased funding in this key area of work but also to a higher commitment to achieve important targets together, which sets an example in the European Region.

Future of the European Centre for Environment and Health

I very much see the future of the European Centre for Environment and Health as centred on these key challenges of our times, and I envisage it as a regional hub of excellence supporting European countries in providing healthy environments to all their people, equally.

As such, the Centre will assist Member States in making progress towards poverty reduction by addressing the environment as one of the most important health determinants linked to poverty; implementing strategic objectives in the area of climate change, with a focus on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in the health and environment sectors; preparing for and responding to environmental health emergencies; ensuring the centrality of environment and health within health systems and across other sectors of government; and calling for better environment and health justice, increased investment in environmental health and higher protection for the most vulnerable groups.

The task is not an easy one but, through working together and across sectors on tackling environmental hazards, we can deliver tangible results on the wider European continent and truly improve people’s health. I trust you are all with me in this endeavour.

Ministers, ladies and gentlemen,

The consolidation of our work in environment and health has been in the making for over a year now. It was a very complicated and challenging undertaking for WHO – the Organization set itself to review the framework and the content of environment and health programmes and to managerially restructure this major area of work. It all took place within a complex environment when partners and donors changed their priorities (some for the better and some for the worse); when the financial crisis could have endangered the sustainability of the programmes; when global processes, such as pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), sustainable development or Health 2020 provided new frameworks to which environment and health should effectively relate.

It has now been brought to a successful closure. The essential ingredients for success were the firm commitment of the German Government to significantly expand its partnership with WHO and increase the funding for the Centre in Bonn; the relentless work of our chief negotiators – Birgit Wolz and Alexander Nies on one side and Srdan Matic and Michal Krzyzanowski on the other – who worked out a very good agreement and overcame any and all difficulties in the process; and finally, full support from the WHO staff concerned and affected by this transition.

The end of the Rome office of the Centre was a traumatic experience for both the WHO staff concerned and the Organization on the whole, so I could not think of a better closure for this period of transition and uncertainty.

Today will be remembered as a new beginning for WHO’s work on environment and health. And may it be remembered as an important milestone in the ongoing partnership and collaboration between WHO and Germany.

Let me then announce that the renewed WHO European Centre for Environment and Health is now open and at full service to the Member States and for better health and environment in Europe!