Who's who at WHO

Today Gates Foundation employees crowded into a packed conference room to hear a panel discussion moderated by Chris Elias, who heads Global Development at the Foundation with speaker Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General of WHO, the World Health Organization, about partnership between WHO and the Gates Foundation.  The other panelists were Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, Assistant Director General, who worked with the Foundation on the successful roll-out of the Meningitis A vaccine in sub-Saharan Africa's 'meningitis belt', since which not a single case of Meningitis A has been reported in the region, and Dr, Ala Alwan, Regional Director for East Mediterranean who is currently working with the Foundation to eradicate polio in Pakistan

WHO praised the Foundation as a partner that contributes not just funding but also technical expertise and collaboration. We currently have 92 'investments' (Gates-speak for grants) with WHO totaling around $1,5 billion, about half of which is going towards eradication of polio.  Other themes included the importance of working with industry to increase access to drugs and vaccines to the whole world, as well as getting national governments to take ownership of national health systems and not to rely on foreign development organizations.

The most fascinating aspect for me was Dr. Chan's comments on how she is reforming WHO, which is now 65 years old.  Dr. Chan advised that to reform such an elderly organization one must first change programmes to be relevant today (and not 65 years ago when WHO was formed). Second one must change the managers where necessary and third, and hardest to effect with 194 member countries, one must change governance. To do this, she said, trust and transparency are paramount. Crisis can also be a useful catalyst for change, and Dr. Chan described how WHO had evolved through the global economic crisis of 2008 which dramatically reduced donations to WHO, the 2009-10 pandemic flu outbreak and then the 2015 Ebola outbreak in mounting an emergency response.