A healthier world is a fairer world. Today as we celebrate World Health Day, let us recall how much health has improved globally since the first time the day was marked over 70 years ago, even as we are reminded in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic just how fragile those gains can be.

UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, strongly reiterates the statements made by the office of the United Nations Secretary-General in condemning the escalating use of force by military and security forces against peaceful protesters in Myanmar. Over the past several weeks, and increasingly in recent days, disproportionate and even deadly force has been used against civilians, including women and young people, resulting in scores of people dead.

All over the world, women lead. They lead peace processes, run businesses, establish hospitals and schools. They are presidents of countries and corporate boards. They head international and grassroots organizations, faith-based groups and sports teams, labour and environmental movements, often while caring for their families and communities.

Two million additional cases of female genital mutilation may occur over the next decade as COVID-19 shutters schools and disrupts programmes that help protect girls from this harmful practice.  

We must act now to stop this from happening. 

The United States decision to restore financial and political support to UNFPA will have an enormous impact on the work of UNFPA and on the people we serve. It sends a powerful message to women and girls around the world that their rights matter. 

When universal health coverage became an agreed global goal just five years ago, it marked a huge leap forward. It is a vision of care and compassion for one another, in sickness and in health. The COVID-19 pandemic reveals just how vital it is that we make that vision real. None of us is safe until all of us are safe.

Realizing human rights, equal and inalienable for every person, is the most just and meaningful goal of any society.

Human rights are universal principles, yet as Eleanor Roosevelt once reminded us, they begin in “small places, close to home…. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.”

More than a billion people: that’s how many live with a disability today. Some disabilities are apparent, but not all. Learning disabilities and mental disorders, for example, may hinder one’s full and effective participation in society. Often unrecognized, they can profoundly complicate navigating a world with little in the way of accommodation or accessibility.

On World AIDS Day, as we unite in support of people living with and affected by HIV, let us remember all those who have lost their lives to AIDS, and those who mourn them.

As the world combats another virus, COVID-19, it must not forget HIV.