From the President: Holiday Message 2025

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Dear colleagues, friends, and members of the global WONCA family,

As the year draws to a close, I extend my warmest wishes to you and to the communities you serve for a peaceful and restorative holiday season. This time of reflection invites us to look back with gratitude, to look ahead with hope, and to remain grounded in the purpose that unites us across countries, cultures, and languages.

Our Shared Mission

At the heart of all our work is a simple and enduring purpose:

The mission of WONCA is to promote general practice and family medicine to improve the quality of life and health of the peoples of the world.

This mission guides our advocacy, our partnerships, our education, and our solidarity with communities everywhere. It is the foundation of our work—and the reason family doctors continue to serve, often under challenging circumstances, with compassion, courage, and commitment.

A Year of Milestones for Global Family Medicine

2025 has been an extraordinary year for WONCA. In Lisbon, at our World Conference and Council, we came together around a renewed vision for strengthening primary health care and reaffirmed our shared commitment to sustainable development for our world. We strengthened our global voice, deepened collaboration across regions, and aligned around a common vision for the future of our organization.

With Gratitude to Our Immediate Past President and World Leadership

As we reflect on a year of transition and growth, I would like to express our deep appreciation to Dr. Karen Flegg, the members of the 2023–2025 WONCA World Executive and the WONCA World Council, who concluded their term in September 2025.

Together, they led WONCA through a period of profound global challenge and transformation—marked by thoughtful stewardship, strong collaboration across regions, and an unwavering focus on strengthening family medicine and primary care worldwide. The foundations they built continue to guide our work and shape the future of the organization.

On behalf of the entire WONCA family, I extend our sincere thanks for their vision, dedication, and generosity of service.

Dr Viviana Martínez-Bianchi and Dr Karen Flegg at the WONCA presidential handover

Reinforcing Health for All at the Heart of Health Systems

Throughout 2025, WONCA reaffirmed its commitment to Health for All—ensuring that all people, regardless of geography, income, gender, or circumstance, can access compassionate, continuous, person-centered care. Our work in this area has expanded from community-based initiatives to global policy advocacy.

Expansion of Global Partnerships

This year marked an important expansion of WONCA’s engagement in global policy and digital governance.

We celebrated a historic Memorandum of Understanding with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), strengthening collaboration on workforce development, primary care research, and digital health.

We also joined the inaugural meeting of the Global Commission for 21st Century Healthcare, convened as part of the WSIS+20 United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting. Representing family doctors worldwide, I emphasized a core WONCA principle: digital transformation must strengthen—not replace—the human relationships at the heart of primary care.

Strengthening the Global Primary Care Workforce

Across all regions, we advanced conversations on workforce wellbeing, sustainability, education, and leadership—recognizing that strong primary care systems depend on supported, valued professionals.

WONCA will continue to advocate for the full academic integration of family medicine and general practice within medical education, research, and health systems worldwide. Academic recognition and investment are essential to developing the workforce needed to meet population health needs now and in the future.

Equally important, we will continue to advocate for fair pay, safe working conditions, and professional recognition for all members of the primary health care team. We also reaffirm our commitment to strengthening rural health systems, ensuring rural and remote communities are not left behind.

Supporting Our Global Community

WONCA continues to invest in people, leadership, and solidarity across all regions.

Information about WONCA scholarships and leadership development opportunities for 2026, including support for conference participation, is available on the WONCA website. In 2026, WONCA will also launch the Young Family Doctors NCD Fellowship, a 12-month program combining education, mentorship, and community-based projects to strengthen early-career family physicians’ capacity to prevent and manage non-communicable diseases in primary care.

Additional opportunities continue to emerge through the work of the WONCA Collaboration Hub, and we look forward to the results of this collective effort.

Standing with Communities in Times of Fear and Stress

As I write today, my thoughts are with communities around the world who are grieving lives lost through war, violence, disaster, displacement, and hate-based persecution. We honor those lives, and we hold close the families, colleagues, and communities who carry that loss.

I want to say clearly: we hear you, and we are with you.

To those experiencing fear, uncertainty, and loss, family doctors stand beside you. In times of stress, we offer care, presence, and trust. We accompany individuals and families through hardship, committed to healing, dignity, and hope.

Wherever there is pain, family doctors continue to serve—not only with clinical skill, but with compassion, solidarity, and humanity.

Gratitude to Our Global WONCA Family

• our Working Parties and Special Interest Groups, whose expertise and commitment drive innovation, research, education, and advocacy;
• our Member Organizations, whose leadership grounds WONCA’s work in local realities while strengthening our global voice;
• the 2025–2027 WONCA Executive Committee, our CEO, and the Secretariat, whose governance and daily work ensure our organization remains strong, responsive, and connected.

Growing Our Movement

As we look ahead, I invite all Member Organizations to help us bring others along—reaching out to new countries, new professional societies, and especially to colleagues in non-English-speaking settings, ensuring linguistic and cultural diversity are reflected across WONCA.

WONCA grows stronger when more voices are welcomed and more family doctors see this organization as their global home.

Looking Ahead to 2026

The year ahead will be one of continued action, collaboration, and renewed visibility across all regions.

World Family Doctor Day 2026

World Family Doctor Day 2026: Compassionate Care in a Digital World

In 2026, WONCA will mark World Family Doctor Day under the theme “Compassionate Care in a Digital World.” This reflects our shared belief that technology should clear the path for care, not clutter it—and that innovation must be guided by the values of family medicine: trust, continuity, human connection, and Health for All.

Throughout the year, WONCA will continue to advocate for ethical, people-centred digital health and strong primary care through engagement with the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and global partners.

Key WONCA Conferences in 2026

• WONCA Asia Pacific Regional Conference
  25–27 March | Iloilo, Philippines
• 21st WONCA World Rural Health Conference
  10–13 April | Wellington, New Zealand
• 30th WONCA Europe Conference
  30 June–3 July | Paris, France
• IX CIMF–WONCA Congress
  22–25 July | Asunción, Paraguay
• 9th WONCA Africa Region Conference
  10–11 September | Gaborone, Botswana
• 10th WONCA EMR Region Conference
  29–31 October | Cairo, Egypt

These gatherings are opportunities to learn, collaborate, and celebrate the remarkable diversity and strength of our global community. When we feel techaga’u—the Guaraní word for longing—there is nothing more healing than jajotopa oñondive: coming together.

A Global Family Connected by Purpose

Family doctors are connectors, advocates, caregivers, and innovators. We serve in rural villages, urban neighborhoods, refugee camps, and academic centers. We heal, we prevent, we teach, we research, and we learn every day.

I am deeply grateful for your leadership, your trust, and your partnership. It is an honor to serve as your President.

Warm wishes for the season.

May this holiday season bring rest, renewal, and moments of peace.

May the year ahead be guided by compassion, solidarity, and hope.

Together, let us light a candle for peace.

With gratitude and admiration,

Dr. Viviana Martínez-Bianchi
President,
World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA)