Abstract
His Excellency Clinical Professor Emeritus Dr. Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn, the Minister of Public Health of the Kingdom of Thailand, was invited to deliver his statement at the 70th World Health Assembly on 22 May 2018 with the theme of “Building Better Systems for Health in the Age of Sustainable Development”. This article reviews the content of the statement delivered by the Minister of Public Health in order to get deeper understanding on the key messages. Lessons learnt from the statement lead to deeper understandings on global health context of Sustainable Development Goals and World Health Assembly. In Thailand, an engagement of multiple partners, both government agencies and non-state actors, is needed. This engagement should be based on trust under good governance. In order to combat with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) challenges, best buy intervention prevention and control of health risks should be implemented, for example, tax and marketing control of tobacco, alcoholic beverage, and sugar sweetened beverage. The next step beyond the statement delivered is to translate the content in the statement into real implementation and monitoring. Another important issue is the strengthening of global health capacity of health staff.
