PHA-Exchange> Choice narrows in WHO Director-General race

[Aviva]

.From: "Leela McCullough" <leela at usa.healthnet.org>
.
> Choice narrows in WHO Director-General race (3)
> -----------------------------------------------
> Source: UN Wire Jan 21, 2003
>
> Number of Candidates for Top Post Shrinking
>
> Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi and former Mexican Health
> Minister Julio Frenk are the leading candidates to succeed World
> Health Organization Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland when she
> steps down in July, Agencia EFE reports (EFE, Jan. 21, UN Wire trans-
> lation). According to LUSA Agencia de Noticias, Mocumbi, Frenk and
> three others have been placed on a short list of candidates for the
> post by the WHO Executive Board, which began meeting in Geneva yes-
> terday. LUSA reports that Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS head Peter
> Piot and Joon Wook Lee, the head of the WHO's tuberculosis program,
> are top candidates and that the last candidate to make the list was
> former Egyptian Health Minister Ismail Sallam.
>
> The board has reportedly dropped two candidates, former Lebanese
> Health Minister Karam Karam and Joseph Williams, a former health min-
> ister of the Cook Islands (LUSA, Jan. 21). Senegalese Health Minister
> Awa Marie Coll-Seck has withdrawn her bid for the post, citing a de-
> sire to "save African unity." The African Union has given its formal
> backing to Mocumbi (Agence France-Presse, Jan. 20). The board will
> vote by secret ballot next week, ultimately endorsing a single candi-
> date (Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters/Environmental News Network, Jan.
> 21).
>
> The final decision will be in the hands of the World Health Assembly
> when it meets in May. The assembly generally bases its choice on the
> endorsement of the board (EFE). The WHO has never had an African di-
> rector general. In addition to the support of the African Union,
> Mocumbi's candidacy also has the backing of the Comunidade dos Paises
> de Lingua Portuguesa and the Southern African Development Community
> (LUSA). France is also supporting Mocumbi (EFE). "There is probably a
> lot of momentum for a candidate from a developing country," said a
> health official quoted by Reuters. "There is recognition that there
> has never been an African.... That would argue in favor of Mocumbi"
> (Nebehay, Reuters/ENN).
>
> Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, though, criticized
> the African Union for endorsing a single candidate. "We're not fight-
> ing for one candidate at the expense of other African nationalities,"
> he said. "We're fighting for the status of the continent" (AFP). The
> Morning Star reported yesterday that the United States is working to
> block an African from taking over the post, lobbying instead for
> Frenk. The newspaper linked U.S. opposition to an African WHO head to
> pharmaceutical companies' opposition to generic HIV/AIDS drugs that
> violate patents (Morning Star, Jan. 20).
>
> Reuters reports that Lee has the support of key East Asian countries,
> while several developing countries and the United Kingdom are backing
> Piot. According to Nancy Upham,  of the Geneva office of the umbrella
group People's Health Movement, the board's decision "will be crucial for
the
> future of international health policy" (Nebehay, Reuters/ENN). In a
> commentary in the Boston Globe Sunday, Lancet editor in chief Richard
> Horton agreed. "Both... UNICEF... and the Office of the High Commis-
> sioner for Human Rights... have higher public profiles than WHO,"
> Horton wrote. "But it is to WHO that politicians turn when diseases
> threaten their people. And it is WHO that is presently undergoing the
> sort of midlife crisis that the world could well do without." Accord-
> ing to Horton, the WHO's "foolishly ambitious" goals regarding world
> health have "thrown WHO into a period of bitter internal wrangling
> about its purpose, its programs and the kind of goals that are genu-
> inely within its reach."
>
> Although Brundtland has raised WHO's profile during her tenure, Hor-
> ton wrote, she has also "disappointed many rank-and-file public
> health workers" by abandoning the "Health for All" goal without de-
> bate and trying to bring market solutions to major health problems.
> The development of public-private partnerships, according to Horton,
> has "brought irreconcilable conflicts of interest," tarnishing WHO's
> "neutrality" by allowing "experts" from companies to join in its
> work. Meanwhile, Horton writes, Brundtland has done little on behalf
> of the poor and has been unable to upgrade the organization's work in
> many countries. Horton said the new WHO head must exercise leader-
> ship, have the courage to hold donor governments accountable for
> their poor commitment to global health, continue the effort to
> strengthen health systems across the globe, especially in Africa, and
> develop policies to reduce major health risks. "The secrecy surround-
> ing WHO's election only reflects the lack of a wider public conversa-
> tion about the health of the world's most vulnerable people," Horton
> said. "When it comes to global health, why doesn't the world care who
> will lead it?" (Richard Horton, Boston Globe, Jan. 19).