Statement by representative of the Russian Federation Ivan Kostantinopolskiy under agenda item 131 of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly “Global Health and Foreign Policy” (explanation of vote after the vote)
Mr. President,
We would like to thank the Secretariat for preparing the reports on this agenda item, including on an inclusive approach to health systems’ strengthening and on tuberculosis control.
The Russian Federation prioritizes the topic of health both at the national level and in international cooperation. In order to combat the coronavirus disease pandemic, a number of innovative medical products have been developed and registered in our country, including two vaccines – “Sputnik-V” and “EpiVacCorona”. We paid special attention to the response to this disease during our chairmanship in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS this year.
We support the adoption of the submitted draft resolution on global health and foreign policy (A/75/L.41). Our gratitude goes to the delegation of Indonesia for facilitating the consultations on this document in the current challenging environment. We appreciate the emphasis made in the draft on the importance of universal health coverage with a focus on primary health care, as well as on creating conditions for socio-economic development – including at the international level. We agree with the provisions of the resolution regarding the fight against non-communicable diseases, tuberculosis and antimicrobial resistance, as well as the need to implement the International Health Regulations (2005). It is also commendable that the text clearly states the leadership role of the WHO in international health work.
At the same time, similarly to last year, we are forced to express concern over the rushed format of the negotiation process, as well as the unbalanced nature of the zero draft which the consultations were held on. We are in favor of keeping the focus of this document directly on the topic of health-care without undue shifting of emphasis to related border-line issues, including human rights, for which the United Nations has specially designated resolutions and work formats.
With this in mind, we are forced to disassociate from paragraph PP.19, which uses controversial terminology and which gives a free interpretation of the Secretariat's objective data on the increase in the number of cases of violence against women in the context of the pandemic.
We believe that paragraph PP.20 lacks a reference to the fundamental UN General Assembly resolution 46/182 on strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian emergency assistance of the United Nations.
Regarding paragraph OP.13, we reaffirm that the language included therein cannot apply to the so-called ICPD Program of Action regional reviews, which ended without adoption by consensus of intergovernmentally agreed outcome documents.
In connection with the provisions of OP.27, on the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, we note that funding for this important mechanism is voluntary, along with support for other initiatives to counter the disease.
In the future, we look forward to constructive engagement in the preparation of this annual resolution to jointly develop consensus decisions on a unifying health agenda.
Thank you.
