Choice narrows in WHO Director-General race (3)
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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Awa Marie Coll-Seck has withdrawn her bid for the post, citing a de-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, president of the umbrella group Peo-
ple'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).
--
Dr. Leela McCullough
Director of Information Services
SATELLIFE
30 California Street, Watertown, MA 02472, USA
Tel: +1-617-926-9400
Fax: +1-617-926-1212
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