Postcard from New York,

▶ Maha Barakat, head of Abu Dhabi’s health care authority, lobbies other countries in New York on global policies

The delegates at the UN General Assembly have diverse priorities. Some are here to sign peace deals, some to agree antiterrorism policies. Others have no specific goal.

But not Prof Maha Barakat, the head of the Health Authority Abu Dhabi.

The authority is involved in all matters related to health care in the capital. Prof Barakat, however, wears another hat, representing the UAE’s support of global health policies.

Prof Barakat was in New York lobbying for Reaching the Last Mile, an initiative to end preventable infectious diseases such as malaria, guinea worm and polio, and the UAE is urging countries and organisations to put political weight behind eradicating them.

The UAE has a long history of humanitarianism and charity. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has ranked the UAE top foreign donor for official development assistance for several years. It is among a handful of countries that consistently meets the UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of gross national income on overseas aid.

“You have objective data showing the efforts the UAE has taken and this has spanned decades,” Prof Barakat said. “As far back as 1990, the UAE’s Founding Father Sheikh Zayed was giving grants to the Carter Centre, including US$5.7 million [Dh20.9m] to help eliminate guinea worm.”

In 1986, there were 3.5 million cases of guinea worm in 21 countries. Today there are only 10 in one country, Chad. That is a 99.99 per cent reduction, Prof Barakat says proudly.

There is more to be done. The UAE has given more than $20m to eliminate guinea worm, but she says the priorities now are malaria and polio, which “kill or cause disability when they don’t kill”. The country has given more than $30m to prevent malaria and, until now, more than $164m to tackle polio. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, has continued his tradition of strategic giving – $167m towards eliminating polio, for example. But his personal engagement also acts as a catalyst for other benefactors.

At the first global vaccine summit in 2013, $4 billion was pledged, which Prof Barakat says was largely due to “the motivational leadership of Sheikh Mohammed and Bill Gates”, who led by example and encouraged others to contribute. The Countdown to Zero in Atlanta last June raised $1.2bn.

Prof Barakat highlighted three strategic priorities, the first of which was to “ensure that the diseases are high up on the political agenda”. And so she and other health advocates chose UN week to lobby for maintaining political engagement.

“There is disease and there is preventable disease,” Prof Barakat said. “Two million children die of preventable disease a year. No one should die of preventable disease.”

The second priority is to “maintain your gains. It isn’t enough to focus on the three countries that still have polio, we have to make sure the rest of the world doesn’t get it”, she said.

The third priority is the all-important funding. “For malaria, we may need $6bn by 2020 to push the last stage of elimination,” Prof Barakat said.

Sheikh Mohammed will host the next health forum, in Abu Dhabi on November 15, with Bill Gates, former US president Jimmy Carter and several world leaders due to attend.

This is in line with the Roll Back Malaria partnership, the global framework for co-ordinated action to eliminate the mosquito-borne disease in 91 countries. Polio will be another focal point for the forum.

“There were 37 cases of polio in 2016 in only three countries, and yet if we suddenly stopped our efforts to eliminate it there would be 200,000 all over the world every year,” Prof Barakat said. “So we cannot just stop, it really is the last mile and we have to finish it together.”

To get from 37 to nil will take more effort and funding. The forum hopes to achieve both, not least because it is line with the UN’s third sustainable development goal: good health and well-being for all.

Named Reaching the Last Mile, the forum “will showcase all sorts of examples of how humanitarian efforts have helped to reduce the burden of these infectious diseases and a call to action for funding so we reach the last mile”, said Prof Barakat. “We hope to walk the last mile hand in hand with the international community.”