[Ip-health] IP-Watch: Nine Candidates Proposed For WHO Director General Position

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

    31/8/2006


      Nine Candidates Proposed For WHO Director General Position


By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen

The 5 September deadline to fill the top leadership post at the World
Health Organization (WHO) is drawing nearer and at least eight
candidates have been put forward, of which six are from developing
countries and two are women.

The formal list of the candidates will be published on 6 September, a
WHO spokesperson told /Intellectual Property Watch/.

After the death in May of former WHO Director General Lee Jong-wook,
member countries were asked to propose candidates to replace him by 5
September. Member countries then will have the opportunity to reflect on
the candidates, and a short list will be discussed at an executive board
meeting on 6-8 November.

The final candidate will be chosen by an extraordinary General Assembly
meeting on 9 November, according to the WHO.

The WHO spokesperson confirmed, however, that China has put forward
Margaret Chan from Hong Kong. As is the procedure, she has stepped down
from her WHO position, at least while the campaign and election is going
on, the source said. David Heymann, who used to be acting assistant
director-general for communicable diseases at the WHO, has replaced Chan
as assistant director general of communicable diseases and Keiji Fukuda,
formerly acting director global influenza programme, is now head of
avian influenza issues at the WHO, the source said.

Other candidates for the director general position are: Kazem Behbehani
from Kuwait, who has been assistant director general external relations
and governing bodies at the WHO until he entered became a candidate for
the DG position; Julio Frenk from Mexico, currently minister of public
health and who also ran for the director general post last time and has
worked for the WHO; and Alfredo Palacio Gonz=E1les from Ecuador, who is
currently the country=92s president. Bolivia, Brazil and Chile have
expressed support for this candidate, according to sources. Bolivia and
Brazil are the only South American countries represented at the WHO
Executive Board.

In addition there are: David Gunnarsson from Iceland, secretary of the
health and social security ministry and who has represented the Nordic
countries at the WHO Executive Board until recently; Shigeru Omi from
Japan, who until recently was regional director of the Western Pacific
regional office of the WHO but who has taken a three to four month
leave; Pekka Puska from Finland, who is currently director general of
the Finnish National Public Health Institute but who worked on
non-communicable diseases at the WHO from 2001 to 2003; Tomris T=FCrman
from Turkey, who worked as an executive director for family and
community heath at the WHO until recently; and possibly one candidate
from Africa, sources say, but this was not confirmed at press time.

Some sources said earlier this summer that T=FCrman also was a candidate
from the WHO secretariat to lead a new intergovernmental working group
on innovation, public health and intellectual property, but she denied
this (/IPW/, Public Health, 25 July 2006).

Some sources argue that as the rotation as Secretary General of the
United Nations should go to an Asian candidate after Kofi Annan, whose
term ends on 31 December, it is not likely that an Asian candidate will
also lead the WHO.

Others argue that as Gro Harlem Brundtland from Norway was director
general before Lee, the position should not go to a Nordic country
again. But one Nordic source pointed out that both Dr. Lee and the
Japanese candidate were from Asia.

Frenk was in Geneva during some days until the evening of 30 August. A
flyer for his campaign that he has handed out, and that has been posted
on the government=92s website, states that: =93Health is a foundation for
equitable and sustainable development, health is a source of global
security=94, and =93heath is a model for reform of the multilateral system.=
=94
Another source close to one of the candidates said that most of the
candidates had been busy traveling this summer visiting governments as
part of the election.

/Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen may be reached at tgerhardsen@ip-watch.ch./