Gro Harlem Brundtland quotes

Gro Harlem Brundtland is a Norwegian politician, physician, and diplomat, known as the first female Prime Minister of Norway. A prominent advocate for sustainable development, she chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development, which produced the influential Brundtland Report. She has also served as Director-General of the World Health Organization, shaping global public health policy. Here are 39 of her quotes:

A safe and nutritionally adequate diet is a basic individual right and an essential condition for sustainable development, especially in developing countries.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

You cannot achieve environmental security and human development without addressing the basic issues of health and nutrition.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Such lifestyle factors such as cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, little physical activity and low dietary calcium intake are risk factors for osteoporosis as well as for many other non-communicable diseases.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Intervention for the prevention and control of osteoporosis should comprise a combination of legislative action, educational measures, health service activities, media coverage, and individual counselling to initiate changes in behaviour.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

It's typically Norwegian to be good.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

[20th Century has been called] the century of extremes, [...] in which human vices reached unfathomable depths. [She notes that it has been] a century of great progress [and in some places of] unprecedented economic growth. [At the same time, however, poor urban areas face a bleak future of] overcrowding and a disease pattern linked to poverty and an unhealthy environment.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

More than ever before, there is a global understanding that long-term social, economic, and environmental development would be impossible without healthy families, communities, and countries.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

During my nearly five years as director-general of WHO, high-level policymakers have increasingly recognized that health is central to sustainable development.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Contaminated food is a major cause of diarrhea, substantially contributing to malnutrition and killing about 2.2 million people each year, most of them children.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

This is a historic moment in global public health, demonstrating the international will to tackle a threat to health head on.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Let me first say that I don't think the millennium target of cutting global poverty in half is an impossible or abstract target. I think it is a real and achievable goal.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

That the AIDS pandemic is threatening sustainable development in Africa only reinforces the reality that health is at the center of sustainable development.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Since the reduction of risk factors is the scientific basis for primary prevention, the World Health Organization promotes the development of an integrated strategy for prevention of several diseases, rather than focusing on individual ones.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

I have seen this happen in recent years with regard to pharmaceuticals and vaccines, where, working together, we are improving access to medicines and vaccines for infectious diseases in the poorest countries.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

The development of the food industry for both domestic and export markets relies on a regulatory framework that both protects the consumer and assures fair trading practices in food.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Today osteoporosis affects more than 75 million people in the United States, Europe and Japan and causes more than 2.3 million fractures in the USA and Europe alone.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

An important lever for sustained action in tackling poverty and reducing hunger is money.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

The burden of disease falls on the poor.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

With an annual investment of $66 billion by 2007, we can save 8 million lives each year.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

In recognising the global problem posed by osteoporosis, WHO sees the need for a global strategy for prevention and control of osteoporosis, focusing on three major functions: prevention, management and surveillance.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

We have an opportunity to launch a massive effort against infectious diseases.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

The global toll of mental illness and neurological disorders is staggering.

Gro Harlem Brundtland