Honourable ministers, dear colleagues and friends,
I thank the Paris Peace Forum for hosting us, and all our panellists for a rich and candid discussion.
I thank especially the young people who spoke today in the Youth Futures Lab.
You reminded us that this is not an abstract debate. It is about your lives, your health and your future.
In July, as the Minister said, President Macron and I wrote about the digital choices shaping our children’s health.
Many of you have discussed those issues today.
But the core issue goes beyond any single technology.
The core issue is about whose voices our children hear, what information they receive – and who they trust.
Trust has always been the foundation of public health.
Trust itself does not make people healthy. But no one can be healthy without trust.
People will not use a medicine they don’t trust. They will not see a health worker they don’t trust. And they will not follow advice they don’t trust.
When trust breaks down, the consequences can be deadly.
For example, during the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the challenges we face is that many deaths occur in communities instead of in treatment centres.
That’s ultimately because some families do not trust the health system, or they have been fed misinformation about Ebola, how it spreads, and how to treat it.
But keeping someone with Ebola at home presents a very high risk of transmission to other family members.
Likewise, one of the ways the virus spreads is through burial customs that involve touching and kissing the deceased – which is also extremely dangerous because dead bodies are very contagious.
But simply removing the bodies from families breeds resentment and mistrust, and can cause them to hide the bodies at home.
Working with community leaders, WHO and our partners design burial practices that are safe, dignified and acceptable to families, helping to build trust, prevent transmission and save lives.
We saw the same thing during the COVID-19 pandemic, when falsehoods about masks and vaccines spread as fast as the virus itself, and were almost as deadly.
Misinformation about routine immunization, such as that vaccines cause autism, has also led to an increase in cases and deaths from easily preventable diseases like measles.
My younger brother died when I was young, and my mother said the symptoms were consistent with measles.
At that time, 55 years ago, a child dying of measles, especially in a poor country, was acceptable.
But now children are dying in highly-developed countries because of measles, and this is because of misinformation on routine immunization, especially this misinformation that circulates saying vaccines cause autism. It’s killing children.
For me especially, it’s personal. It makes me sad to see children dying without any valid science to support their claim.
Of course, it’s easy to blame, dismiss or ridicule people who believe false information.
In each case, people are simply doing what they believe is right for themselves and the people they love.
But often that belief is based on false information, and misplaced trust.
Governments and platforms certainly have a responsibility to stop the spread of harmful lies.
But we must also ask ourselves a harder question. When we seek the trust of others, are we ourselves trustworthy?
We cannot assume trust. We cannot demand it. We must earn it.
We earn it by listening to the people we serve, and understanding why they doubt.
We earn it by being honest about what we know, what we don’t yet know, and what we got wrong.
We earn it by providing information that is accurate, clear and sensitive to culture and context.
And we earn it by delivering results.
People accept science when they feel connected to it, even when the evidence is uncertain.
Trust grows when institutions show competence, transparency and fairness, and when they reflect the values of the communities they serve.
This applies to all of us: governments, researchers, health workers, UN, funders, media, civil society, and WHO.
Earning trust is the purpose of Together for Science and Health, which we launch today, on World Science Day for Peace and Development. It’s fitting, actually, that we launch it today.
This is a movement, not a programme. It does not belong to WHO. It belongs to everyone who believes that science must serve people.
The movement rests on five core values, which spell the word RISES.
First, R stands for respect: for diverse sources of knowledge, including lived experience, cultural perspectives and the expertise of communities.
I stands for integrity: honesty, transparency and accountability, especially as new technologies emerge.
S stands for scientific rigour: robust methods, critical inquiry, peer review and a commitment to keep learning.
E stands for ethical responsibility: ensuring that scientific progress serves the public good, respects dignity, promotes equity and upholds human rights.
And S stands for social inclusion: actively listening to diverse voices, above all those of the people most affected, so that science responds to society’s needs and benefits everyone.
Each of these values is, in the end, a way of earning trust.
The movement will put these values to work in three areas.
The first is science and society.
Science cannot be done to communities. It must be done with them. That means a scientific process built on transparency, integrity and rigour.
It means involving communities in setting research priorities.
And it means ensuring that scientific advances, including AI, translate into better health for people everywhere, not only for those who can afford them.
The second area is science and policy.
Often, evidence arrives after decisions have been made, or decisions are made without it.
We want stronger dialogue between scientists and policymakers, so that decisions are timely and grounded in evidence.
And we want policies informed not only by data, but by the lived realities of the people they affect.
Policies built that way are more relevant, more feasible and more effective.
The third area is science and communication.
Evidence that people cannot find, or cannot understand, protects no one.
We want to improve how health information is developed, shared and understood, through open public dialogue about science.
And we want to prevent the harm caused by misinformation and disinformation, so that people can engage with health guidance confidently and critically.
Children’s health in the digital age sits exactly where these three pillars meet.
It needs independent research on technologies that change faster than our studies can follow.
It needs policies shaped by that evidence, and by the experience of children and parents.
And it needs trusted messengers who can explain the evidence in plain language, in the places where families actually look for answers.
Since the call to join opened last month, 245 organizations have signed up. I thank each of them.
Today, I invite many more to join us: governments, universities, research and health institutions, professional associations, media, civil society and youth organizations.
I invite technology companies to join us too. You have shaped how billions of people find information. You have the power, and the responsibility, to make those environments safer.
And I invite each of you to take these five values back to your own institution, and to ask honestly how well you live up to them.
In this building, in 1948, the world adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The same year, the WHO Constitution entered into force, affirming health as a fundamental right.
Science is how we turn that right into reality. Trust is what allows science to do its work.
So let’s earn it, together.
Thank you. Merci beaucoup.