WHO director-general Dr Tedros on the Jameel Arts & Health Lab at COP28 Health Day reception

A recording and transcript of the remarks delivered by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), at the COP28 Health Day reception hosted by Community Jameel and the WHO Foundation in Dubai on 3 December 2023, featuring the Jameel Arts & Health Lab. These remarks have been edited.

Recording

Transcript

If a wind blows, what do you do? Ride it. That's the Jameel family's principle, I think, from [the late] Abdul Latif Jameel.

Without the collaboration of the UN, the private sector, civil society, youth and all stakeholders, the government, we cannot achieve the SDGs. The WHO is changing. The WHO Foundation was part of the WHO transformation. It was a conscious act and a conscious intervention to change the organisation.

Arts and health was not a conscious step or change from WHO. It was one man’s project. To Chris. We hadn’t opened our eyes in WHO until he did show us the way. Single-handedly, he created the arts and health in WHO.

I know this will change things. Health and climate has not been taken really seriously, but if you use the health argument, there is a compelling argument that climate change is a problem of now and today.