The past year has been the most testing in WHO’s history. However, it has also demonstrated why, more than ever, the world needs a strong and sustainable WHO. When I penned the Foreword to last year’s WHO Results Report, 4 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported to WHO, and some 300 000 people had lost their lives. A year later, the number of cases has ballooned more than 40-fold, to almost 160 million, and the number of deaths has increased 11 times, to more than 3.3 million. A year ago, vaccines were still a distant hope; now they are giving us real hope of bringing the pandemic under control. Even so, the shocking disparity in the global distribution of vaccines is another painful reminder of the inequities that blight our world and lie at the root of so many of its problems. The past year has been the most testing in our Organization’s history. However, it has also demonstrated why, more than ever, the world needs a strong and sustainable WHO…more