Your Excellency, Prime Minister Mia Mottley,
Your Excellency, Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne,
Excellencies, dear members of the Global Leaders Group on AMR,
My thanks to Your Excellency the Prime Minister for inviting the Global Leaders Group to your beautiful country, which I had the pleasure of visiting last year.
I am sorry that I cannot be with you in person, due to the conflict with our Executive Board meeting here in Geneva.
Thank you to those who have travelled to Barbados so that the Global Leaders Group can finally meet in person for the first time.
My warm welcome to the five new members. Your engagement is critical to increase political attention to the grave threats posed by antimicrobial resistance.
My thanks to Prime Minister Mottley for your ongoing leadership, to Deputy Prime Minister Fearne as you assume the role of Vice-Chair, and to all the continuing members.
My greetings and thanks also to the leaders and teams from the Quadripartite organizations.
We have an important agenda.
Together, you will approve an updated action plan for your work over the next two years and discuss a roadmap towards the second High-level Meeting on AMR in 2024.
As I did in Muscat last November, I want to emphasize the importance of financing for the AMR response, which is a key topic for discussion at this meeting.
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Unless we make progress on this issue – by better leveraging existing mechanisms and domestic resources, as well as new financing commitments – AMR will continue to fall through the gaps.
The economic study now being led by the Quadripartite will help us build the case for smarter investment in the AMR response.
I am pleased to see that the Global Leaders Group has invited a wide range of external presenters to this meeting, so that we may continue to learn and to expand our network of partners, including with the private sector, which plays such a critical role.
I also welcome the focus on AMR in the environment, and I congratulate UNEP for issuing its first report on the environment and AMR, which will be released later in conjunction with this meeting.
I hope that the warm Barbados sunshine inspires a rich and positive dialogue for the next two days and that these discussions lead to a strong programme of action in the year ahead.
Thank you once again for your commitment.
Thank you Prime Minister, and thank you Barbados, for bringing us all together on this serious issue, which we call a silent pandemic. I hope this meeting will be a gamechanger for our focus in the future.
Thank you.
