Today, we have gathered here to look at the initial parameters of what will grow to become the World Health Organization’s first public health convention. We have started a global debate around tobacco. Our Member States are eager to analyze the tobacco toll on individuals and governments and they are equally eager to act on the evidence. Every tobacco death is preventable – that is our challenge.

What we have in front of us is a first catalogue - a menu - of possible options for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that history will remember as our contribution to averting a public health disaster that kills someone, somewhere in the world, every eight seconds. Together we have identified the problem. Together we are going to find a solution. Let us see to it that ours will be the last generation to face this scourge without hope.

The task at hand is a formidable one, but our difficulties fade into insignificance when viewed against the public health threat caused by tobacco consumption and marketing. As the levels of accuracy of information rise from global research, it becomes clear that we have severely underestimated the global tobacco death toll. New information coming from India and China shows that tobacco kills more adults than believed earlier. New data from Brazil, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Oman, Egypt, China and India indicate how common youth tobacco use has become and how many newborns and children are harmed by exposure to passive smoking. I believe similar stories will come in from other countries.

We will spend the next two days clarifying issues we want reflected in the Inter-Governmental Negotiations planned for October 2000.

When we embarked on this journey in May 1999, I shared with you my view that our work will not be easy – not for us at WHO and not least for our Member States. Over the past months, our work has taken us into uncharted and sometimes rough waters. As we cut through the obstacles arising more out of ignorance about tobacco rather than design, we are becoming increasingly aware of the multi-sectoral nature of the response that we will need if we want to give the world a truly viable public health agreement.

The FCTC is a political process brought in to serve a public health cause. And like any political process, the key to success lies in expanding inclusiveness, ensuring transparency and clarifying the key purpose of the exercise.

It is happening not just here in Geneva. In all our Regions, the logic of the FCTC has taken root and governments are calling on each other and on us in their search for solutions. A meeting of parliamentarians in Africa; an anti-tobacco flame making its way through Asia; plans to establish national commissions to formulate FCTC positions in all countries in the Americas; European Union directives on tobacco advertising and products increasingly circumscribe the promotion, spread and use of tobacco – the list is long and growing.

We are not alone. Our partners in the United Nations family and Bretton Woods institutions are now seriously engaged in this battle to save lives and economies. The establishment by the Secretary General of a United Nations Ad Hoc Inter-Agency Task Force under WHO’s leadership has significantly expanded opportunities for multi-sectoral collaboration across the UN system. Under the umbrella of this Task Force, technical work relating to the FCTC has started. A Task Force meeting in Rome earlier this month identified new areas for technical cooperation between WHO and the World Trade Organization, aimed at finding points of synergy between WTO agreements and the FCTC.

Since we started this process, our global knowledge has expanded in a very significant way. The FCTC process, for example, will increasingly consider the whole area of regulating tobacco products. In response to a WHO meeting in Oslo last month, I will shortly announce the creation of a Scientific Advisory Committee on Tobacco Products Regulation.

As we proceed into the next crucial phase of negotiations, we have learnt a lot and I believe we will continue to learn as we listen to the debate that has been initiated.

Evidence tells us that more tobacco farmers, including workers, lose their jobs because of technology changes and mergers of tobacco multinationals than by the long-term drop-in-demand led strategy that we are proposing. The change we are talking about will take several decades. With no change in current smoking rates, regrettably there will be almost 400 million more smokers in 2020 than there are today, not only maintaining, but actually increasing the demand for cigarettes within that time frame.

The Food and Agriculture Organization is currently examining the potential socio-economic impact on producing countries of a long-term global reduction in demand for tobacco. WHO is in contact the organizations who represent tobacco workers and farmers in order to clarify the need for public action.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world counts 1.2 billion smokers today and if current predictions come true, we may have an additional 400 million smokers by 2020. Our aim is to reverse that trend and prevent future generations from falling victim to tobacco. If we are very successful, we could bring that figure down to one billion by 2020.

The transnational dimension of the tobacco epidemic unleashed on countries requires solutions that reflect the global nature of the problem. This must support implementation of existing and planned national laws in addition to providing global tools with which to protect future generations. Advertising and smuggling are not issues that countries can cope with in isolation.

I invite all parties with a material interest in advancing our public health goals to work with us in a constructive manner. WHO will hold a public hearing on the FCTC – the first such hearing in WHO history. The two-day hearing will take place in late September or early October 2000. All interested parties will be requested to submit written comments and testimonies, including relevant background materials. Subsequent to the hearing, WHO will invite all interested parties who wish to make written submissions responding to such testimony. All submissions, as well as all testimony, will be made part of the public record as well as being made available for the delegates to the FCTC negotiations. In this way, this debate remains in the public domain.

As I look around this room and consider the work we have already accomplished together, one word, and only one word, comes to mind - congratulations. Twenty months ago few would have thought we could travel down this road together, let alone come this far. Twenty months ago many in the public health community paused and wondered if what we were saying was possible. Let us now move forward with determination, skill and a commitment to success.