Jimmy Carter Addressed the WHA 2004

A man who found his own way to help underprivileged people

Jimmy Carter addressed the World Health Assembly (WHA) held in Geneva, on May 16, 2004. Carter was the thirty-ninth president of the United States (1977-1981). Long before being elected to the White House, he was a leader of the local community, showing interest and working on programs for education, hospital and library improvements and supervision. During his presidency, he made significant foreign policy accomplishments in world peace policy. The most significant are the Camp David Accords which resulted in the treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel, the SALT II agreement with the Soviet Union, the establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and the Panama Canal treaties. He used his influence to fight for equal human rights throughout the world.

In 1982, he became University Distinguished Professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. In the same year, he founded The Carter Center, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organisation that addresses national and international issues of public policy. Carter is actively leading the Centre in its efforts to promote democracy and human rights, resolve conflicts, and to develop health programs to prevent disease and other afflictions. With a dedicated program, called "Global 2000 program", the Centre advances health and agriculture in the developing world. In collaboration with Emory University, the Centre develops and applies academic research, dominantly action-oriented projects aimed at advancing a very broad-based concept of human rights and alleviating human suffering.

The aim of the Centre is "Creating a world in which every man, woman, and child has the opportunity to enjoy good health and live in peace".

The Centre set a number of practical goals, particularly for developing countries, such as prevention of unnecessary diseases in Latin America and Africa, including the eradication of Guinea worm disease. The other aim, which has global implications, is to diminish the stigma against mental illness and improve mental health services.

In 2002, the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2002 to Jimmy Carter "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

Once Carter said, "When I was in the White House, I thought of human rights primarily in terms of political rights, such as rights to free speech and freedom from torture or unjust imprisonment. As I travelled around the world since I was president, I learned there was no way to separate the crucial rights to live in peace, to have adequate food and healthcare, and to have a voice in choosing one's political leaders. These human needs and rights are inextricably linked."

In his speech to the WHA, Carter followed the ideas of humanitarian work and active participation in help for developing countries. In his opinion, one of the main challenges for the world is the growing difference between the rich and the poor nations, leaving one fifth of the world's people to live on less than 1 dollar per day, which is hardly enough for food and shelter and does not leave anything for either education or healthcare. "This disparity in wealth is growing in parallel with vast improvements in communications, so that the poor are increasingly aware of their relative poverty and of the world's apparent indifference to their plight. This arouses among them a sense of neglect, hopelessness, and understandable resentment against the powerful and wealthy who are indifferent." said Carter.

Carter also stated his belief that one of the most effective ways of closing that gap is in finding a way for rich people to become more aware of the plight of the world's poor and to be more committed to improving their health. He reminded the audience of a statement from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: "we recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health".

Carter pointed out that the health leaders have to know what to do in order to mobilize political will at the highest levels. Whenever there is a target - like a disease chosen for total eradication, extraordinary progress can be achieved through team work. Specific goals can and should be used to help ensure measurable improvements in all public health services.

Carter explained the mechanism of thinking at the Carter Center and the way the Centre works in partnership with the CDC, UNICEF, WHO, and many others: "At the Carter Center, we see our health work in this broad context. Our motto is "waging peace, fighting disease, building hope". We realize that with only 150 employees and an annual budget of about $35 million, which we must raise for our health and peace work, we can only do so much. (It is not an accident that more than two thirds of our resources are devoted to health.) We select projects based on the potential for significant impact, their relative neglect, where we believe interventions are doable, and which are amenable to a data-driven approach - within individual homes and villages."

Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn left the main meeting hall of the Palais de Nation in Geneva under standing ovation from the present national and NGO delegates, observers and the press.