The Regional Director’s Office WHO/SEARO

Dr. Uton Muchtar Rafei,

Regional Director for South-East Asia, has provided leadership within WHO for 16 years. Born in Bandung, Indonesia, Dr. Uton has experience and skills that have helped mould the health nations in the Region, which is home to a quarter of the world's population. Harnessing the diverse forces that influence national health planning and implementation, he has helped obtain maximum political and technical commitments for health development in South-East Asia through constant interaction and consensus building with individuals, expert groups, WHO collaborating centres and the Region's Health Ministers, Health Secretaries, Medical Parliamentarians and the Regional Committee.

Dr. Uton has hastened the process of WHO reform by restructuring and reshaping the Regional Office to reinforce WHO's credibility, technical capability and cooperation with other international agencies and alliances such as the ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK, WORLD BANK, ASEAN and SAARC, by clearly defining priorities and excluding vested interests, Dr. Uton has worked to develop an integrative approach to health development.

"WHO has the mandate to assist the world community to build a new era of health in which health in everybody's business," Dr. Uton says, pledging a new drive for partnership and consensus, a particular effort to diminish crises arising from financial constraints, and clarity, energy and vigilance in the pursuit of health for all.

Resource mobilization should be encouraged at regional and country levels to support national health programmes. In the South-East Asia Region, WHO representatives are encouraged to advocate and facilitate resource mobilization directly with Ministries of Health and others in their countries.

Such partnership for health will be WHO's main thrust as the 21^{st century} begins. In the South-East Asia Region, WHO is positioned at work in partnership with consortia of bilateral and multilateral donors, providing technical support and catalytic funding as a model for our collaboration at national, regional and global levels.

Industry, commerce and trade associations are being brought in and encouraged to make healthy products, implement worker and community health programmes, and help protect their environments.