- Hanan Balkhy: Regional Director, WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Cairo, Egypt.
The WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) is home to 745 million people, of whom 107 million (14%) need humanitarian assistance. EMR is the source of 55% of the world's refugees and has 33.7 million people who have been forcibly displaced. Of the region's 22 Member States and territories, 13 are directly or indirectly affected by conflicts, 9 are classified by the World Bank as in 'fragile or conflict-affected situations' and 6 rank among the lowest globally on the World Bank's political stability and absence of violence indicator.