Health for All: WHO’s 2025 Roadmap Blends Innovation, Equity, and Regional Cooperation

The WHO’s 2025 Western Pacific agenda focuses on harnessing AI, strengthening hypertension and surgical care, and intensifying tobacco control to advance equitable, technology-driven health systems. It calls for coordinated regional action to ensure innovation serves all communities fairly and sustainably.

The World Health Organization’s Regional Committee for the Western Pacific (WPR), in collaboration with renowned research institutions such as the National Institute of Public Health of Japan, the China–Japan Friendship Hospital, and Australia’s McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, has released its 2025 policy agenda ahead of the seventy-sixth session to be held in Nadi, Fiji. The paper outlines four major themes shaping the region’s health future: artificial intelligence in health care, hypertension control, safer surgery, and tobacco control. These discussions embody WHO’s regional vision, “Weaving Health for Families, Communities and Societies in the Western Pacific (2025–2029),” which links innovation with equity and aims to strengthen public health resilience across diverse social and economic landscapes.

Artificial Intelligence: Promise and Precaution

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming health systems globally, but the WHO cautions that its promise must be matched by governance. Generative AI now supports language translation, clinical documentation, and patient education, enabling countries to improve efficiency and accessibility. Yet, many projects remain at pilot stages due to limited funding, infrastructure, and regulatory readiness. WHO urges Member States to identify high-impact AI applications that enhance health equity and strengthen public sector capacity to govern these tools responsibly. The organization will support countries by documenting successful use cases, fostering expert networks, and promoting dialogue between policymakers and technologists. The emphasis is on responsible innovation, ensuring that AI strengthens, rather than fragments, health systems.

Tackling the Silent Killer: Hypertension

Hypertension affects 28% of adults in the Western Pacific Region, with only one in five achieving control. It remains a leading cause of cardiovascular deaths, yet effective solutions exist. WHO aims to help 100 million more people bring their blood pressure under control by 2030, raising the average control rate to 50%. Countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines are embedding hypertension management into primary care using the WHO’s HEARTS technical package. Digital health tools, from telemedicine to mobile apps, are making treatment and follow-up more accessible, especially in rural communities. The Philippines’ Healthy Hearts Project has improved access to essential medicines, while Pacific island nations have expanded community screening. WHO calls for scaling up these initiatives through stronger data systems, workforce training, and sustainable financing, with special attention to smaller island economies.

Building Safer Surgery Systems

Safe and affordable surgery is identified as essential to achieving universal health coverage. WHO estimates that improved surgical care could prevent 1.5 million deaths annually in low- and middle-income countries. The Western Pacific region has advanced through the Action Framework for Safe and Affordable Surgery (2021–2030), emphasizing system-wide reform over isolated interventions. Countries like Fiji, Cambodia, and Solomon Islands have improved sterilization, infection prevention, and antibiotic use, while Kiribati has pioneered leadership training for nurses to strengthen hospital governance. National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anaesthesia Plans (NSOAPs) in Samoa and Tonga demonstrate growing regional ownership. WHO advocates embedding surgical care in national benefit packages, promoting clinical leadership, and fostering multidisciplinary teamwork. It pledges continued support through peer-learning platforms and governance training modules to ensure surgery becomes safer, affordable, and accessible to all.

Renewing the Fight Against Tobacco

Despite notable progress, tobacco remains a formidable challenge. The Western Pacific houses 370 million tobacco users and accounts for over 3 million deaths annually. The Regional Action Plan for Tobacco Control (2020–2030) targets a 30% reduction in adult tobacco use, but progress has been uneven. Countries such as the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Palau, and Vietnam have made strides with plain packaging laws, e-cigarette bans, and new excise tax reforms. However, industry interference and the rise of novel nicotine products threaten these gains. Malaysia and Australia have enacted comprehensive controls on e-cigarettes, while the WHO continues to assist through technical guidance and partnerships with research centres in Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong. The organization urges governments to intensify “best-buy” interventions, higher taxes, smoke-free environments, graphic health warnings, and strong enforcement, and to use data-driven monitoring to track progress. With Indonesia newly joining the Region, coordinated action is now more urgent than ever.

A Shared Commitment to Health Equity

Across all four themes, WHO’s message is one of shared responsibility. Innovation, evidence, and inclusivity must move hand in hand. The Western Pacific stands at a defining moment: to use technology not as a luxury but as a lifeline, to extend care to underserved populations, and to strengthen health systems that protect every citizen. The 2025 technical discussions chart a roadmap for transformation, one that binds together nations, communities, and families under the belief that public health progress is only meaningful when it is equitable, sustainable, and shared by all.