 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is the first press conference of the second day of the World Economic Forum on ASEAN. Thank you for being with us today to talk about how to eliminate malaria. I would like to first introduce my panel here and then we will let them speak on the position on this issue. We go with Mr. Dr. Benjamin Roth, CEO ASEAN Pacific Leader, Malaria Alliance. Thank you for being with us. Mr. Stephen Grof, Vice President East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific for the ADB ASEAN Development Bank. Mr. Serge Poon, Chairman, Serge Poon Association from Myanmar. We will start with Dr. Roth to give us the context on your fight against malaria. Malaria is a disease older than humankind and in fact the whole world used to have malaria. Elimination of this disease will probably be more important for humanity than putting a man on the moon. It's an enormous endeavour and we now have 23 heads of government committed to eliminating by 2030. So we have extraordinary leadership behind the initiative, which is fantastic. Financing has been increasing and just in January this year, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria announced 243 million to support elimination in the greater Mekong sub-region. And here in Vietnam, 10 years ago, there were 242 deaths every year. We're now down to almost zero deaths. So the progress across the region has been extraordinary. The challenge we now have is multi-drug resistant malaria that's spreading across the greater Mekong sub-region. And if we don't stop that in its tracks and the only way to do it is by eliminating malaria, we will see potentially a deadly resurgence over the entire world as we lose the one frontline drug that we have available to treat malaria. So it's a story of good news, incredible progress, but now really a huge need to see it through to the end game in the next five years. You can go through Mr. Groff now. So on the bank, I think you have a new fund to fight this. Could you tell us about it? Well, we're in the process of establishing a regional health fund. And the purpose of that is recognition essentially of the fact that many countries in the region have for some time been dependent on vertical funds and donor funds to help support the fight against communicable diseases, including malaria, TB, and others. And the challenge there is that many countries in the region, of course, with the success of economic growth, are essentially growing out of access to a lot of these funds. And by 2020, we anticipate that many of the countries will actually have very little if no access to this kind of grant funding to help fight these kinds of diseases. And so what ADB is doing is we're in the process of discussing with Applema, our colleagues, and with the Global Fund, setting up a fund that would essentially provide grant money that could go in alongside the investments we have the Asian Development Bank make in this sector that would reduce the cost of our funds to those countries that are interested in continuing to address these issues even after they lose access to the kinds of grant fund that they're very much dependent on. Another element of this, of course, is the fact that the vertical funds have long recognized that the issue goes well beyond just the incidents of these diseases, but the health systems more broadly. And that's something that ADB has been working on in many of these countries is supporting countries in universal health access and strengthening health systems. And so we do hope that through the establishment of such a fund and the mobilization of additional grant resources, we'll not only be able to improve these countries' ability to deal with these diseases on a continual basis, but in the process also strengthen the health sector and health access across the countries as a whole. Mr. Foon, and I think also you have, you also leading an organized second called Yuma Strategic. Could you help us from the business as a business leader? How are you fighting this? How are you supporting this? Well, from a business community point of view, we are cognizant of the fact that this fight against malaria is something that we as the business community has a great deal of responsibility. In the past, I think we feel that this is something that perhaps the government or the health organizations and other people should be doing and where we are in business. But today I think the whole mindset, the whole basis of doing business and the missions and the goals of business have changed considerably. And we take social responsibility a lot more serious than we used to. So Yuma Strategic's stance is that yes, in the fight against malaria in Myanmar, where we are most active, we would take a lead role. And together with our other colleagues and other countries that have taken a lead role, we will do our share in Myanmar in achieving the goals of Applema and M2030 goals. And maybe Mr. Grof can tell us a little bit more also, what about the government? What about the government? How can government have on this? Well, I think governments have a very critical role to play in this regard. I mean, we do very much think that the private sector has a strong role. We appreciate the work that's being done to buy Mr. Poon and the securities more broadly on that front. And in fact, in Myanmar, we have seen a dramatic decline in malaria by about 64% over the last five years. So that's a testimony to that kind of partnership and testimony to the work that the government has done and the private sector has contributed. But governments have a very, very important role in that they do are responsible for making sure that all citizens of that country have access to healthcare. And that is important not only for essential reasons of philanthropy and goodwill, but it's also an important economic issue. One thing that's been revealed over the course of many years and many studies is that human capital and human capital accumulation is critical to economic growth. It's critical to productivity growth, which in turn has great returns to economic growth. And the healthier your society is and the more resilient your society is, the stronger and more sustainable growth will be. So it's not only a charity in that sense and an obligation of governments who provide for their citizens, but it's also important economically as well. And would you like to add on what is next for the Alliance? Sure, well, I think you see here, certainly in this meeting today, the complementary resources that governments, regional development banks like ADB and the private sector bring to this fight. You know, the private sector leaders are now the most trusted leaders in the region. The surveys show that the young people in the region aspire to the business leaders in this region. So business leaders coming out to support malaria elimination and then using their reach, their influence, their resource mobilization capacity to support that fight is an extraordinary asset. Then with the ADB coming into this space, taking a health systems perspective, you cannot eliminate malaria without robust health systems, a village health worker in every village. And the ADB is more than a bank. You know, when you finance a car, the bank don't tell you which car to buy or how to fix it. But ADB are there for the end game. They will support the government at the most senior levels right the way through until the job is done. And so with the private sector and the regional development banks and now 23 heads of government, including all of the Mekong region, leaders supporting the initiative, I'm very optimistic that we can eliminate within the next 10 years, hopefully sooner. Or sooner. Or sooner, yeah. So do we have any questions from the forum? Any, please. Could you state your name? Just wait for the microphone and your organization, please. Hi, good morning. My name is Jenny Ravelo, reporter for DevEx. My question for VPGroff, I know that you're still looking to capitalize this fund. I just wanna know how much grant financing funding is ADB contributing to it? And for Mr. Poon, I just wanna ask, what value do you see for your business in helping address malaria in Myanmar? Thank you. Well, thank you, Jenny, for that question. We're still in the process of determining what that is. This is sort of a fund that we are starting now and starting discussions around now. We've reached agreement around sort of the general conditions, but we have not yet determined what the full amounts that will be contributed to the fund are. We do hope that we'll be able to generate significant interest in this and we're very grateful to the Global Fund for their support in that regard. And the Global Fund itself recognizes that with this nearing year of 2020, when their funds are not gonna be as robustly available in the region, it's important that we provide other funds that will help reduce the cost to governments of addressing these issues. And of course, as Ben mentioned, the challenge really is one that it's not an individual country problem. When you look at other kinds of issues that the ADB addresses, often there are things that are specific to an individual's government policy. Whereas this is, when you look at the Mekong region, particularly what happens in one country when you're talking about communicable diseases has impacts in other countries. And so we need to work on this collectively. And that's where grant funding is important because it's not just how one country is choosing to deal with it or the economic level or GDP level of one country. We have to think a little bit more broadly across the region. So that's why we think grant funding is important. And that's why we're quite confident that we'll be successful in raising funds for this movement. To your question, Jenny, I think for us, we're really not thinking in terms of what value there's gonna be for our business, it's more what we can do towards this mission. What value we can give towards it. We're not in the pharmaceutical business. We're not in the business of selling some services to eradicate malaria. We're just doing our duty, hoping that we will add some value to this whole exercise rather than what value we're gonna get from this exercise. I guess that would be my answer. Thank you. Do we have more questions? Yes, please. Hi, good morning. I'm Mohan from Cambodia, Comet Times. My question is the issue of malaria has been set again and again and again. And yet there are many strains of malaria which are drug resistant. So what part of the fund would you be contributing towards trying to find a magic bullet or a silver bullet to get rid of malaria or to control it? Thank you. Anyone, please? Let me take that one. You're absolutely right to identify multi-drug resistant malaria as a major global threat. And the epicenter has historically been in the Mekong and indeed in Cambodia. This has mobilized an enormous amount of global interest and the global fund has committed $243 million this year to fight it on top of a further $100 million they committed three years ago. The good news is that countries are now matching that money. So we've now reached a tipping point where governments are now spending more than 50% of the total volume. They're covering more than 50% of the total investment. So governments are stepping up, leaders are stepping up and we're seeing some progress, but it isn't fast enough. And what our hope is, is that mobilizing business leaders to use both their influence, their financing and their ability to mobilize decision-makers in countries, we can sustain the political leadership and interest and visibility around these issues for the next five to 10 years as we really stamp out malaria. The challenge is we become victims of our own success. As malaria cases go down and down, it becomes harder and harder to keep this on the agenda. And if you talk to any minister of health in the region, they want to talk about dengue because that's what's on the front of the newspapers and what's affecting their middle class voters. Malaria is a disease of the rural poor and it's an unfinished agenda for the region's development. And this is why we so much welcome the leadership shown by ADB and the private sector, particularly Yoma Strategic Holdings, is that they have latched on to this message that we must take a health systems approach, but we must focus on this unfinished agenda of the rural poor, rural development to make sure that no one is left behind with this extraordinary ASEAN growth story. This is very true on the dengue and then the SICA and so on. Anyone would like to add to this? Any more questions? I think we would like to have a crossing statement on maybe Mr. Poon how the other business leaders could follow you into fighting against malaria. Well, we're always calling upon our business community, whether you're a big company or a small company or a medium-sized company, I think you can all play a role. This is not something that you have to be very big or very rich to be part of it because there's so many ways to contribute to the combat of eradication of malaria and I really would like to call upon the business people, the private sector, to participate. We hope that we would lead the way, but we definitely hope that there's a lot of people coming along with us on this journey. One final point that I think speaks very much to the theme of the World Economic Forum ASEAN meeting is that what's happening here is that aid and support for development priorities is moving into ASEAN. This is ASEAN for ASEAN, particularly with M2030 ASEAN leaders, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Myanmar business leaders supporting elimination in their own countries. The Asian Development Bank very much an institution of the Asia-Pacific region supporting the region to reach development goals. So the old model of money coming from Geneva, from the US, from Western donors is really shifting and the locus is now within the region. I think that's an extremely exciting development, much broader than health or malaria actually in its significance. And I believe that this work of other region can also follow suit as well. Absolutely. Mr. Groh. And just in closing as well, I think that we've seen across this region and everybody so well knows, just phenomenal economic success over the last several decades and a great reduction in poverty across all countries in the region. But the challenge with these types of issues is that these disproportionately affect the poor. And so unless we are successful addressing these issues, we're not really gonna finish this process of economic growth in the region and the realization by all these countries of their aspirations towards stronger, more resilient and healthier society. So that's why we think this is important and that's why we'll continue to do this kind of work in the future. Thank you very much and we hope we fight this before 2030. Thank you. Thank you to the audience. Thank you. Thank you.