Thirtieth World Health Assembly Geneva, 2-19 May 1977 II. [antikvár]

VERBATIM RECORDS OF THE PLENARY MEETINGS FIRST PLENARY MEETING Monday, 2 May 1977, at 3 p.m. President: Sir Harold WALTER (Mauritius) 1. OPENING OF THE SESSION The PRESIDENT: Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, as President of the Twenty-ninth World Health Assembly, I have the honour to declare open the Thirtieth World Health Assembly. It is also a pleasure for me to welcome, on behalf of the Assembly and the World Health Organization, your worship, the Mayor of the City of Geneva; your excellency, Mr Jacques Vernet, representing the Conseil d'Etat of the Republic and Canton of Geneva; your excellency, Mr Pierre Wyss-Chodat, President of the Grand Conseil; Mr Emile Piguet, President of the Municipal Council of Geneva; Professor Jean Posternak, Vice-Rector, representing the University of Geneva; Mr V. Winspeare Guicciardi, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, representing the Secretary-General of the United Nations; the Directors-General of the specialized agencies, their representatives and the representatives of the various United Nations bodies; the delegates of Member States and the representatives of Associate Members. In 1976 five new Members joined our Organization - Angola, Cape Verde, Papua New Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, and Surinam - bringing the present number of Member States to 150. Also in the same year, 1976, the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam informed the Organization of the unification of the former Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the Republic of South Viet-Nam. I also welcome the invited observers from non-Member States, the observers of the national liberation movements invited in conformity with resolution WHA27.37, the representatives of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations in official relations with WHO, and the representatives of the Executive Board. You will have to bear with me when I address you later on. For the time being, I now give the floor to Mr Winspeare Guicciardi, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva. 2. ADDRESS BY THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS OFFICE AT GENEVA Mr WINSPEARE GUICCIARDI (Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva): It has been an occasion for me now for about eight years to welcome you to the Palais des Nations and I am very happy to be able to do so today on the occasion of your Thirtieth World Health Assembly. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Kurt Waldheim, has specifically asked me to convey to you also his personal warm greetings and his best wishes for the success of your Assembly. Inevitably, on occasions of this kind and in particular on a thirtieth birthday, as it were, one has to think back to the birth of your Organization and to the early days of the United Nations. There were many who upheld at the time the importance of maintaining a division between the basically political responsibilities of the United Nations itself and the sectoral, technical tasks of the specialized agencies. Since that period, political -39-