Health@Davos: Climate Change and Role of Government

Welcome to the unDavos Summit - A community-organized series of interactive panels, talks, and networking taking place in Davos, Switzerland - and online - in parallel to the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 20-24 Jan 2025. Our mission is threefold: 
• Democratizing Davos: We open the doors to diverse voices and ideas, breaking down traditional barriers to participation. 
• Humanizing Davos: We foster genuine, relationship-driven connections that go beyond transactional networking. 
• Bringing Action to Davos: We turn meaningful discussions into tangible, real-world solutions. 

Join us for Health@Davos 2025, where we delve into the critical theme of "Resilience and Innovation: Future-Proofing Global Health Systems." This engaging panel discussion will bring together global leaders, policymakers, and healthcare professionals dedicated to advancing global health resilience and equity on January 22, 2025, at the Mountain Platz Hotel in Davos.

Our esteemed panelists include:
- Dr. Joneigh S. Khaldun, President & CEO, Public Health Accreditation Board
- Dr. Craig Spencer, Emergency Medicine Physician, Brown University School of Public Health
- Robert Metzke, Global Head of Sustainability, Philips
- His Excellency Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, President of Guyana
- Professor José Manuel Barroso, Chair, Gavi; former Prime Minister of Portugal and former President of the European Commission
- Dr. Megan Greenfield, Partner, McKinsey and WEF YGL
- Daniella Foster, Senior VP, Bayer Consumer Health
- Anil Soni, CEO, WHO Foundation
- Dr. Timothy Ferris, President of Red Cell’s Healthcare Practice
- Dr. Beatrice Vetter, Director of NCDs, FIND
- Dr. Pascal M. Golec, Co-Founder, Heights Health

With dynamic sessions including keynotes, panel discussions, and networking opportunities, this event aims to foster substantial conversations surrounding topics such as technological innovation in healthcare, climate change, and mental health. 

Click here to sign up: https://lu.ma/HealthAtDavos

For unDavos 2026 Sponsorship & Partnerships: Exclusive collaboration opportunities: Contact Mark here: https://bit.ly/417TrB9 

Or catch the full video here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaJbdDmq_eU and browse all podcast episodes here: https://undavos.buzzsprout.com/

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And join our global community and let’s spark the change together!

Transcript

(00:08) event this afternoon particularly honored to welcome Dr Leslie Rams Sami who is the ambass guana's ambassador to the UN he is also a health adviser to the president of Guyana chair of Georgetown Public Hospital corporation which is the main public uh Hospital in the capital of guyan and responsible really for the for the national public health system um for former minister of health and agriculture um his bio is uh you can get through the QR code but uh an impressive uh leader um and uh someone that were so grateful he drove you drove
(00:53) all the way from Geneva just to be with us this afternoon uh we thank you for that maybe I'll just start by asking you um what what is it about this context and event that's so important to to drive and make all the effort you made today to join us thank you very much John and thank you all for having me here uh this this afternoon I feel special um I have no colleagues here to hide behind um why well because health is important and maybe health is not everything but guess what without help everything is nothing and we in the
(01:47) Caribbean the political organization called CARICOM has something that says health is wealth and so whatever we talking about today and in the past and in the future health is at the very center health is development and for to put in context what we probably will be talking about next few minutes and what we've been talking about all day there are some things that we have to keep in mind when I became minister of Health guyana's investment in Health was $7 us per capita and I went to the cabinet making an argument one Health is
(02:44) not a mendicant coming with our hands outstretched for resources we are development the child with will not learn unless the child is he healthy a worker can't produce unless the worker is healthy and I can go on and making all of the those kinds of arguments but health is development health is not there asking for charity that's the first thing and the second argument I made was exactly what I said to start that health is might not be everything but everything is nothing without health and therefore governments must invest in health it's a public
(03:46) good the the next thing that um that that drove us in Guyana to invest and that drove me um making my passionate appe around the world is that at this moment that we are talking right now the woman giving birth in Kali has one tenth of the chance of surviving in a woman giving birth at NW in New York right now and the baby that born in Dakar right now have less than one tenth of a chance of surviving to be five than a baby born in Boston and such inequity at this time in our history of the world is simply unacceptable so those were some
(04:54) arguments that I use that we need to invest more in health in Ghana but the that applies to everywhere it applies to the US it applies to senagal applies to South Africa to India to to Ghana Brazil all of us um so but but there are some unique things about health ministers and and health ministries today because in investing in health and preparing Health to so that we removed inequity for Women's Health Children Health Etc we're faced with some challenges climate change the rising levels of ncds mental health the existential
(05:50) threat of antimicrobial resistance which is expected by 2050 to ex in terms of number of deaths to exceed cancer um and then to face challenges such as Ai and technology in health the hospital of the future um in short today a minister of health is not only thinking of the investment to address their everyday things people come into the hospital for or the health center um but how do we future prooof health because investment can't be for today investment have to be for the future um so in short I drove with one cup of coffee to
(06:54) come here my friends at the back couldn't figure F out how to use the equipment to give me coffee and I just discovered that nwell and the world economic Forum had the same problem with the machine well I'll buy you coffee afterwards um so so much connected to health part of it investment there's a Workforce um stigma which uh even when you have the resources in place can prevent a family or a person from uh engaging with treatment and Care um I guess just curious for you as you sit and listen and all of your experience you've had as
(07:47) a leader in this space right now what what what do you what do you think's most promising in terms of uh advancing equity and health and and advancing sort of Health in in Guyana or more generally the global South I think that at the national level National Regional level we have begun to recognize um not just in thoughts but in our budgeting and so on that health is development and that health is a fundamental right there is a right to health that must be um not a con institutional guarantee but that it um must um be
(08:38) supported by the budgeting process um often and I mean I think all countries guarantee Health as a right in their constitution but it's always conditional on resources and and so whether we invest enough in health but it's not just investing overall in health it's okay to say that I used to invest $7 and now I'm investing $1,200 but it's how we investing it as somebody earlier mention that globally the average investment for mental health is 2% it's probably a little less than that and in many developing countri countries
(09:30) it's less than 0.5% and yet it probably of the health budget of of the health budget yeah and and yet in terms of disease burden and we don't estimate it accurately in case of in in terms of disease burden it's probably one of the highest in in every country um so at the national level that is part of what we need to do but at the global level we also multilateralism is critical um to support National Health and regional health and I'm afraid that we have not been doing the best job that we can and I'm afraid that the next few
(10:27) years will be even more critical for multilateralism um and I don't want to go into why I say that but um listen somebody earlier said too the wh think you said it the wh has many faults and flaws but the world is worst off without the wh and if we you take a simple thing like the pandemic when the pandemic came it came at a time when for decades we've been talking about the next pandemic but we didn't do anything and it caught developed countries and developing countries equally unprepared and so what have we been
(11:27) doing at the multilateral we've created a pandemic fund but many countries can't benefit the countries in the most need can't benefit yet we talked about the pandemic agreement it was supposed to happen by 2022 remember we're going to May with little chance of agreeing but if we do and when you get back to wherever you have to go check it the agreement that they might approve is an aspiration it doesn't say we must do this it says if we feel like doing it in essence that's what it is
(12:35) um some of us were born when we were were born at the time when we start talking about um antimicrobial resistance I was a student in New York when we were talking about antimicrobial resistance we still talking about it one Health because one Health is the answer if we're going to deal with pandemics and be better prepared and I listened to the last session and sessions before outside of the equity is issue that that I talked about um there are still countries that have surveillance systems that are just week if it exists at
(13:33) all and we're talking about surveillance system that is not deep it doesn't go to the root causes of Public Health crisis that we have because covid didn't start when the first human pass it on to the next it started before It Started From A zuntic source so when it comes to multilateralism we desperately need it we are PF forting I don't know if I should use that word but but that's what we're doing and and so we need to get serious um there are lots of things the the question that you asked and that was dealt with
(14:35) before we can make it easier I I made a point to in private conversation why is it that 90% of developing countries don't have an electronic medical record it's something that we have the capacity globally to ensure that every citizen of the world has medical records that are in electronic form um so so and that depends on us working together to make it happen and yes we're doing a little bit more partnership between develop and developing world and and and maybe it it is more develop with private with with private Arrangements
(15:34) northwell Mount Si institutions in the US and Canada and Europe working with countries so when I became minister of Health we had 170 doctors uh 150 we had eight dentists this is the whole country today we have about 150 dentist and we have over 1,300 doctors wow we had some Specialists but they came from India and Cuba and China and some bahai volunteers today gyana has over 500 specialist doctors because we have 21 specialist postgraduate programs working with institutions like northwell Mount Si with Harvard with
(16:42) Vanderbilt with Stanford University of uh Vancouver Calgary Daly um gent in in in Belgium um private arrangements for part ship um and and so there it is possible it is possible but I think ntion more commitment as health as a development um and security rather than just um being just being helpful to people and multilateralism so that we could together solve glob problems thank you we have only a couple minutes left um and we're not doing questions right okay um I guess just in the final two minutes uh I know you well
(17:45) enough to know that you have more to say and um uh and good stuff so you know what would be a a final reflection or thought uh on this topic that we've been discussing I I think that my my final say on this is that there are many things we could work on today that will bring a better world if we work together we can ensure that people have access to the things whether it's AI that will help um reduce the Gap um where it's access to medicine to to Diagnostics Etc but we have to work together there is a broken Global
(18:40) supply chain that places people countries and people at a disadvantage when HIV came it taught us an important lesson all the lessons were forgot and all the issues that we faced with HIV we faced it again with covid-19 we thought we learned a lesson here in 2025 those are all the same issues and so I would say that what is lacking right now is that commitment that will that determination to work together because there are right now multiple lwh hanging fruits that we are not touching um and and and if we could do
(19:43) those if we could ensure that the perennial problems of maternal mortality child mortality access to vaccines and medicines um the IP issues that deprived people as good as it is but IP H hemony also um prevent people from access if we could just work together to reduce or eliminate these constraints we will make a better world and therefore I'm saying the time for future proofing is now Ambassador thank you so much you are inspiring um and your experience is remarkable in all the ways that you've Advan Public Health um thank you for
(20:39) making the journey today to join us we appreciate it so much thank you thank you thank you much