Eightieth session of the Executive​ Council (​​​EC-80)​​

Mr. President Dr. Abdullah Al Mandous, Distinguished Members, colleagues and friends,

One year ago, from this same seat, I asked three things of this Council: help us prioritize, engage as co-designers of our future, and strengthen our collective visibility in a world that needs what we produce but does not always realize it does.

I want to begin today by acknowledging what happened next.

Members and the secretariat did not simply respond to those requests. We delivered — under conditions that were harder than anyone anticipated, in a timeframe that left little room for hesitation. A Transformation Plan was implemented. Posts were restructured and significant savings achieved. A Task Force to prioritize activities in 2026-2027 was established, worked for twelve weeks across every output of our Operating Plan, and produced a rigorous prioritization framework. Ten sub-regional consultations in all five UN languages generated the evidence base for our next Strategic Plan. An independent governance review was commissioned, completed, and is now before us. And this year, WMO launched the Commons — a pooled financing mechanism that opens a new chapter in how we resource our mission. The UAE made the first significant contribution, setting an example I hope others will follow. 

Through all of it, WMO's daily activities continued to function without interruption.

We should not take this for granted, I certainly do not. I want to explicitly express my appreciation for the staff support and professionalism, even under these circumstances. There are very few institutions in the multilateral system that could point to this arc — from a call for engagement in June 2025 to a concrete, documented record of delivery in June 2026 — and mean it. WMO can. That is worth stating clearly before we turn to the work that we have ahead of us.

Now, the context in which all of this happened matters.

The multilateral system is under significant stress. The world is under significant stress. Budget pressures, geopolitical fragmentation, the questioning of multilateral institutions' relevance — these are not WMO-specific conditions. They are the operating environment of our era. Across the United Nations family, institutions are being asked to justify their existence, restructure their resources, and demonstrate value in ways that were not required a decade ago, or even 5 years ago.

WMO entered this period from a position of genuine strength — technically exceptional, operationally trusted, scientifically credible. But strength does not make an institution immune to financial pressure, and we have not been immune. Outstanding assessed contributions stand today at CHF 77.8 million — CHF 34 million more than two years ago. That is a structural vulnerability that this Council will address, not only because the numbers demand it, but because our mission demands it.

And this is where I want to be precise about something.

The cost of constraint is not only financial. When we defer capacity development in AI, we do not save money neutrally — we widen gaps that take a decade to close. When we scale back scientific coordination, we do not reduce expenditure cleanly — we erode the connective tissue of a global system that functions because it is global. Some of what financial pressure asks us to reduce is not overhead. It is institutional DNA. 

And the decisions before this Council this week must be made with full awareness of that reality.

This is why the tiering framework produced by the Task Force must be understood for what it is: a disciplined triage instrument for today's liquidity situation. It is not a redefinition of WMO's purpose. Tier 3 today does not mean unimportant tomorrow. 
The Strategic Plan 2028–2031 — built from the ground up through Member consultations and foresight analysis — is where purpose is defined. The Long-Term Goals before this Council are not budget parameters. They are commitments about what kind of institution we intend to be.

The Joint Investigation Unit (JIU) governance review before us adds a further dimension. Members will form their own judgments on its findings and recommendations. What this Council is asked to do is more focused: agree on a realistic timeline and strategy that gives Congress the preparation it needs to decide the way forward. This is a rare opportunity to deliberately shape the governing architecture of this Organization for decades to come — and we should treat it as such.

Members, we are not here to manage decline. The demand for what WMO delivers and for what you National Meteorological and Hydrological Services produce — forecasts, warnings, climate data, standards, scientific cooperation — is growing, not shrinking. Every extreme event makes that clearer. What we are here to do is make deliberate choices about how this Organization remains strong, equitable, and scientifically credible through a decade that will test every institution we have built.

The record of this past year shows that when asked, this Organization delivers. The question before us now is whether we will make the choices that allow it to keep doing so.

I believe we will.

But that will require much more than to represent our individual interests. It will require us to act as guard of this Organization and of the global public good it serves. I therefore ask every member to stand fully behind WMO, to invest in its future, and to approach our decisions this week with a shared sense of responsibility for the success of the whole.

Thank you.