Our guest to the delegates’ corner is Dr Mohammed Jaber Huwail, Deputy Director-General of Directorate of Public Health, Ministry of Health, Iraq, a member of the Iraqi delegation to the Regional Committee.

We expect from this Regional Committee recommendations which will help us to strengthen our approaches in the different domains of public health.

All the agenda items of this meeting are important, although they appear to be ‘scattered’, in reality they are closely related to the overall theme of strengthening health systems.

I have particularly appreciated the precise and elaborated discussions with effective time management.

As an outcome of this meeting I would like to see more integrated approaches focusing on health system strengthening and modernization to deal with all other issues.