Investing in health will produce enormous benefits.

During my nearly five years as director-general of WHO, high-level policymakers have increasingly recognized that health is central to sustainable development.

Health is the core of human development.

Let me first say that I don't think the millennium target of cutting global poverty in half is an impossible or abstract target. I think it is a real and achievable goal.

The dual scourge of hunger and malnutrition will be truly vanquished not only when granaries are full, but also when people's basic health needs are met and women are given their rightful role in societies.

Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers' suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions and unwanted children.

Today osteoporosis affects more than 75 million people in the United States, Europe and Japan and causes more than 2.3 million fractures in the USA and Europe alone.

Such lifestyle factors such as cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, little physical activity and low dietary calcium intake are risk factors for osteoporosis as well as for many other non-communicable diseases.

The launch of the report coincides with the initiation by WHO of the global strategy for the prevention and control of osteoporosis, and I think a good partnership could be established in our common efforts to prevent osteoporosis.

We are also in the process of defining how best to work together with food and other companies to address diet and physical activity factors in order to prevent chronic diseases.

This is a historic moment in global public health, demonstrating the international will to tackle a threat to health head on.

This syndrome, SARS, is now a worldwide health threat... The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick and stop its spread.

An important lever for sustained action in tackling poverty and reducing hunger is money.

I have seen this happen in recent years with regard to pharmaceuticals and vaccines, where, working together, we are improving access to medicines and vaccines for infectious diseases in the poorest countries.

A safe and nutritionally adequate diet is a basic individual right and an essential condition for sustainable development, especially in developing countries.

Contaminated food is a major cause of diarrhea, substantially contributing to malnutrition and killing about 2.2 million people each year, most of them children.

This double burden of disease is rapidly putting a serious brake on the development efforts of many countries.

We have seen SARS stopped dead in its tracks.

Women's health is one of WHO's highest priorities.

Since the reduction of risk factors is the scientific basis for primary prevention, the World Health Organization promotes the development of an integrated strategy for prevention of several diseases, rather than focusing on individual ones.

Investing in health will produce enormous benefits.

In recognising the global problem posed by osteoporosis, WHO sees the need for a global strategy for prevention and control of osteoporosis, focusing on three major functions: prevention, management and surveillance.

Intervention for the prevention and control of osteoporosis should comprise a combination of legislative action, educational measures, health service activities, media coverage, and individual counselling to initiate changes in behaviour.

Osteoporosis, as the third threat, is particularly attributable to women's physiology.

Cancers of all types among women are increasing.

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in women.

When public and private sectors combine intellectual and other resources, more can be achieved.

More than ever before, there is a global understanding that long-term social, economic, and environmental development would be impossible without healthy families, communities, and countries.

Although approximately 80% of osteoporosis sufferers are women, as the longevity of the male population increases, the disease will assume increasing importance in men.

The development of the food industry for both domestic and export markets relies on a regulatory framework that both protects the consumer and assures fair trading practices in food.

That the AIDS pandemic is threatening sustainable development in Africa only reinforces the reality that health is at the center of sustainable development.

You cannot achieve environmental security and human development without addressing the basic issues of health and nutrition.

With an annual investment of $66 billion by 2007, we can save 8 million lives each year.

The burden of disease falls on the poor.

The dual scourge of hunger and malnutrition will be truly vanquished not only when granaries are full but also when peoples basic health needs are met and women are given their rightful role in societies.

The climate challenge illustrates how we have to change. The developing countries need more support and opportunities to develop and use clean energy. Because if the current situation continues then the world will not be able to handle this burden.

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

While we have made great progress in increasing funding for veterans' benefits, we still have a long way to go in fully meeting the promise to our veterans.

Nothing is more pleasing and engaging than the sense of having conferred benefits. Not even the gratification of receiving them.

These are people who haven't gone through the legal means to becoming citizens like our forefathers did. They want all the benefits but none of the responsibilities.

The benefits of education and of useful knowledge, generally diffused through a community, are essential to the preservation of a free government.

There are many benefits to this process of listening. The first is that good listeners are created as people feel listened to. Listening is a reciprocal process - we become more attentive to others if they have attended to us.

I do benefits. I do them all the time. There's so many people out there that needs help that I can't say I won't help them.

Substantive and procedural law benefits and protects landlords over tenants, creditors over debtors, lenders over borrowers, and the poor are seldom among the favored parties.

To honor our national promise to our veterans, we must continue to improve services for our men and women in uniform today and provide long overdue benefits for the veterans and military retirees who have already served.

Globalization presumes sustained economic growth. Otherwise, the process loses its economic benefits and political support.

There is no social program in this country that is as important as a good job that pays well, that gives someone an opportunity to go to work, have some security, have benefits, and take care of their family and have a good life.

Nonetheless, the developing countries must be able to reap the benefits of international trade.

The sacrifices made by veterans and their willingness to fight in defense of our nation merit our deep respect and praise - and to the best in benefits and medical care.