WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has pledged to strengthen the WHO’s ties with Taiwan as Japan takes a more important role in the global entity, Japanese Minister of Finance Satsuki Katayama said in a social media post on Saturday last week.
Katayama made the remarks after she met with Ghebreyesus in Japan.
US President Donald Trump in January signed an executive order to withdraw the US from the WHO and suspended its investment in the organization.
Photo: Reuters
The WHO last month announced that 2,400 employees, or about 25 percent of the organization, would be laid off by the end of June next year.
Ghebreyesus visited Japan to enhance the WHO’s strategic cooperation with Japan — its second-
largest investor following the US — on universal health coverage while Japan, the WHO and World Bank jointly held the universal healthcare high-level forum on Saturday last week and unveiled their set-up of the Universal Health Coverage Knowledge Hub in Tokyo.
The hub marks the first collaboration between the WHO and the bank in the field, and would make Japan an international hub of developing public health human resources, Katayama said in her post.
She quoted Ghebreyesus as saying that he would strengthen ties with Taiwan.
Representative to Japan Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) yesterday congratulated Japan for setting up the hub and thanked Katayama for bringing up Taiwan.
Taiwan’s globally praised national health insurance system can enlighten other countries, he said, adding Taiwan could contribute more to the international community if it participates in WHO.
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