Reforming the WHO regional director elections: an opportunity to restore trust

Despite the polycrisis confronting our world, as UN Secretary-General António Guterres counsels, we must rebuild trust and restore hope in 2024. In global health there are grounds for optimism, and opportunity too. Some of that lies in the World Health Organization (WHO). When Dr Tedros, WHO’s director-general, assumed helm of WHO in 2017, Anders Nordstrom, a former senior WHO member of staff decried the performance of WHO’s country offices and declared that “radical change is needed.”1 Arguably Tedros is delivering. What happens “on the ground” is central to his WHO Transformation initiative and the empowerment of country representatives. Crucially, Tedros will play a role alongside regional directors in jointly selecting future country representatives.The process for the election of regional directors provides another opportunity for critical WHO reform. Last year demonstrated the need for change with one WHO regional director dismissed over misconduct2 and the election in another WHO region questioned,…
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