The speech as delivered (transcribed from audio recording)

Dear friends, dear Tore,

Above all, you hear my voice that I have not slept much this night. And the reason why I did not sleep much this night, that's why I stand here today. – Because politics sometimes is like that.

A mentor

I'm very proud to be able to address you, Tore, at this symposium. And it's a bit of a dilemma in a way, because I am going to speak as Prime Minister to somebody who means a tremendous number of things to me, personally. So, this could have been a private session somewhere, where we could have talked about the small important moments in life, skiing in the Jura, dinner around your and Anne's table up there, everything you contributed to my family in those months. And we will continue to do that.

But I would also like to say, that for me, and I'll close on the personal note here; you have been a mentor. – In many senses, because you have been a mentor – teaching me a lot about what is possible in politics; if you do the right things at the right steps.

You have taught me a lot about what personal integrity means, what it can bring. You don't come about it with vast amounts of money or power or influence, but you came there with the power of reason and the power of persuasion.

So, for all of that, I'd like to thank you. And I look forward to read the book, which I'm certain will be a good testimony to your efforts.

At the WHO

Now, I'm going to – I’d like to say – a few things on challenges and opportunities in global health. I would like to start by the point of saying that we cannot save all, but all of us can do a lot if we really go into it. And I think Tore's example illustrates that one man at the right place at the right time can make tremendous change. If it is done in a carefully thought-through and strategic fashion.

Before we met, Tore and we got to know each other, you had been leading important programs at the WHO. You had already demonstrated that you could really make a difference at the local level for people, tropical diseases, all your research. We also know that your blue eyes contributed to bringing Dr. Brundtland to WHO. That was a very moving chapter in her life. – Are you here, somewhere, Gro?

But when we came to WHO, it was really about thinking strategically; how do we explore this opportunity of having a Director General who has a reform agenda and where should we put the emphasis? I see Professor Dean Jamison here, I see even more friends, and some of the partners you worked with to get into that position.

How to convince

And I see it as a combination of three things:

First of all, understanding clearly what is the art of the possible. And when you have mapped that, you should add some 20-30 percent and push for it.

Second, a personality, and an experience, and trustworthiness. And I think you demonstrated this extraordinary ability to inspire trust with policy makers, with colleagues, with the financial community.

And it brings me to the third point; you put forward ideas on how to progress on global health across the boundaries, private and public.

And what I learned at that time was that, on the one hand, you reached out to an academic profession, which was not yours. It was rather Dean's and others, economics, because you understood to move the decision makers. You had to reach them with arguments that went beyond ethical and moral. It has to touch the inner source of what they were dealing with.

Remember, we developed this expression; that convincing policy makers that investing in health is worthwhile – that is easy with health ministers because they know – but you have to reach the finance ministers and the prime ministers and the presidents. That's when things happen.

And I remember when we were in China on the first visit of Dr. Brundtland. She was received by the entire Chinese leadership. And she could say, if you do changes in your tobacco policies, you can free up arable land for other kinds of agriculture activity. If you put a levy on tobacco, you will increase income to your budget.

And these arguments were much more persuasive than the pure public health ones that it is not wise to smoke. So, you enlarged the toolbox of how to convince. And in so many instances, you did that in your own field.

I remember also, how do you reach policy makers with persuasive sentences? You and I, we were looking at the G8 summits. And the presidencies were inviting Tore to come up with proposals on what we could do on global health during their presidencies.

And then in the summary and the conclusion from that meeting you could measure in millimeters how much did we get in for public health? And those chapters became longer and longer because Tore was able to tell the presidency at the beginning; we have a few ideas here on what you can do on vaccination, what you can do on child poverty, what you can do on under-five, what you can do on maternal health. And any president who is in charge of such a presidency will say – "Oh, give it to me."

This is something that can be understood. You also contributed to something which was important, and I can see this now as a Prime Minister: Money being spent by governments. You are really keen to see that it goes into the right direction. Can you prove to me that this money really makes a difference on the ground? And not putting it into ‘a big black box’?

Innovation and GAVI

So, you used experiences from the auditing business and integrated that into the programs that we developed. Gavi, I think, is really about that. So, your personal capacities here, not alone, you are a modest man, you will point to other people who contributed, but these qualities, I think, contributed to the fact that in the first two decades of this century, let's make them almost three, it is in health that we've seen the most innovation in international cooperation.

And the reports that Dean Jamison and others helped us write, Dr. Brundtland and I and others, spelled out that pandemics will be a challenge of the 21st century. And that was a word that non-health professionals like me were saying, what's a pandemic? Is an epidemic bad enough? Pandemic is a much bigger thing. And we had SARS and we had bird flu and all of this kind of things emerging, and it was proven right.

So, I think the innovation that came with Gavi, that came with the Global Fund, that came with private-public partnerships, mobilizing industry, getting prices down, making drugs available, really made a difference. And you drove that.

G20 and the Global Fund

Two weeks ago, I was in Johannesburg. Norway was a partner country for the G20. We've been in that for two years now. And this was the summit of the South African presidency. And it was kind of an emotional moment because I was invited by President Ramaphosa and Prime Minister Starmer to speak at the replenishment of the Global Fund.

So, we came together and Norway was pledging, and other countries were pledging, even the US is pledging to the Global Fund. And I remember at the time when the Global Fund came about, there were questions – do we need another fund? Is this going to disrupt balance between institutions? Your approach was also – okay, if that's the case, you – institutions get real – because we are going to get new mechanisms. We are going to drive new change.

The Global Fund – and Dr. Brundtland – actually contributed to integrating malaria into this equation because it was AIDS and TB in the beginning, but we got in malaria – and this is still such a daunting killer out there.

It is estimated that the Global Fund has saved 70 million lives since its launch in 2002, and that is extraordinary. Across the 15 Sub-Saharan African countries, life expectancy has risen from 49 to 61 years. Imagine – in a world with so much bad news, this is extraordinary.

And the chair of the Global Fund is saying – I don't know if it is right – it is probably right: Never ever in human history have you seen such a growth in life expectancy in such a short time, which is proving Dean's point that if you invest in health, then you have the main avenue for combating poverty.

Now, in a way, the rest is history. In Zambia, life expectancy increased by 15 years; from 43 years in 2002 to 58 in 2021. Imagine what that does in a country. In 2024 alone, 25 million people received HIV treatment, 7 million were treated for TB, and 162 million anti-malaria mosquito nets were distributed.

And so on and so forth – and the establishment of CEPI, all the other initiatives that have followed – we salute them, Tore.

Building capacity

I'll end on this: One thing I learned when I came to the WHO, was the debate between horizontal and vertical interventions. You all know what that means. – So, the point here was that Tore's approach was to say, we want to bring help and the necessary vaccines and interventions out there where people are in need. That's how we can save lives.

And it was met by some who said – no, no, that is not building capacity. We have to build the capacity of the local health station, of the health system, and then we can move on.

Tore's point was that if we do the first thing, you achieve the second. – Because if you get the vaccines out through the chain in the jungle to the small health stations, there will be somebody there, maybe Red Cross volunteers, maybe the scarce resources, and then you build the capacity. And then governments will invest and they will see the necessity of moving forward.

Health for all

So, that I think, is a lesson learned, because the other one, only looking at the horizontal thing, easily becomes quite academic. At the same time, I must say that the approach of health for all, reaching people, is still, I think, the pivotal approach of what global health should be about. And now, in times of such daunting technological change, let us always remember that this is what we have to strive for.

We have, as I discussed with President Ramaphosa in South Africa – remember how Nelson Mandela helped us launch Gavi at that time – how he lent his name; the president in South Africa now is an adamant supporter of this agenda and I think that is helpful.

The Lusaka Agenda

Now we have the Lusaka agenda, which is about creating resilient, inclusive health systems. And that is an agenda that we should pursue. We must fully implement that because that is a roadmap for action. And I hope, that for the next 20 years, global health will still be a driver of change.

We are of course facing obstacles now when the US is pulling out, which is to me completely meaningless. – Something which is very negative for pursuing US interests. What I've seen traveling the world, the consequences of closing down USAID initiatives is unbelievable, but I still believe that the global health community is resilient enough to say that we can move forward because there's so much more we can achieve.

So, with these words, I would like to honor the legacy of two big mentors for me – Dr. Brundtland and you, Tore – and, that we will continue to invest in global health.

In our self-interest

And the final point here – which I actually spent today, in the Q&A session in parliament, when I was ‘attacked’ for wasting money abroad, by one specific opposition leader, then I said that this is something we do, if you like, in pure self-interest. Because it is in our self-interest that we can help create that development, which will take down conflicts.

And as Professor Dean Jamison taught us – Dean and I have been using those examples – if you reduce under-five child mortality, firstly, children will survive, which is good, and parents will have fewer children.

Secondly, as the health systems out there is out-of-pocket expenditure, if the children are not sick, then the parents can work. Because if they are sick and you don't have a welfare state, they have to stay at home. So, this is the good cycle.

So, let us continue to promote that. I think every dollar, every kroner spent on that is useful. And the biggest driver of this, I think, theoretically, philosophically, and in pure action, is Dr. Tore Godal, who I'm very proud to be a friend of. – Thank you so much.

 

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