[Ip-health] IP-Watch: World Health Organization To Elect New Director General In November

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

<SNIP>

Member countries may propose candidates for the director general post
from 1 June to 5 September, and these will be forwarded by the
secretariat to all member states by 5 October, the WHO said.

On 6-8 November, the 119th Executive Board meeting will work on a
shortlist of five candidates and interview them. It will then forward
the name of one candidate to a one-day special session of the World
Health Assembly on 9 November. This will be the first special session
assembly in the WHO=92s history, it said.

This was the most expensive solution, sources said, but in line with the
Executive Board=92s decision on 23 May to implement an =93accelerated
process=94 for choosing a new director general, the WHO said.

The 34 countries represented on the current Executive Board are:
Afghanistan, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil,
China, Denmark, Djibouti, El Salvador, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya,
Latvia, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Mexico,
Namibia, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Singapore, Slovenia, Sri Lanka,
Tonga, Thailand, Turkey and the United States.


<SNIP>

At the moment there is informal discussion about possible candidates for
the director general post. Among the names circulating are the Mexican
Minister of Health, Julio Frenk; the head of UNAIDS Peter Piott;
Christopher Murray, faculty director of the Harvard University
Initiative for Global Health; and former president of Switzerland Ruth
Dreifuss, who headed the recently concluded Commission on Public Health,
Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights, two sources said. One
source also indicated that the heads of the six regional offices of the
WHO could also be interested, as could Asian countries such as Japan. It
is generally understood the Asian region is next in line to provide the
successor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

<SNIP>

Next Steps For R&D Working Group

Separately, the secretariat is expected to soon take forward the work of
setting up an inter-governmental working group that would start the work
mandated in a resolution adopted at the World Health Assembly last week.

The working group is supposed to come up with a =93strategy and plan of
action aimed at, inter alia, securing an enhanced and sustainable basis
or needs-driven, essential health research and development relevant to
diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries.=94

It is not yet clear who will head this group or when the decision will
be made, but names have been put forward such as Robert Ridley director
of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and
Training in Tropical Diseases, and Howard Zucker, WHO assistant director
general for health technology and pharmaceuticals. Zucker is from the
United States.




-------------


      World Health Organization To Elect New Director General In November


posted by Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen @ 12:24 pm

The Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) has decided
to speed up the process of electing a new director general and will meet
in November to nominate a candidate who will be proposed to a special
session of the World Health Assembly.

The decision was reached in the form of a resolution at the ongoing 29
May to 1 June 118th Executive Board meeting <http://www.who.int/gb/>,
according to the WHO. This meant waiving a rule which allows for a
six-month nomination process, the WHO said.

Following the sudden death of Director General Lee Jong-wook on 22 May -
the first day of the 59th World Health Assembly - the Executive Board
met in a special emergency session the following day to decide how to
proceed.

A number of sources have indicated that the special session was quite
contentious as some countries were confused about the legal procedure,
and the meeting lasted late into the evening. Lee had written in a
letter, the existence of which the member countries were unaware and
which was almost like a personal testament, that the WHO Assistant
Director General for Management Anders Nordstr=F6m should take over if Lee
were unable to carry out his job, sources said.

The November 2003 letter stated that =93Dr. Nordstr=F6m would not perform
the functions of deputy director general unless Lee were unable to
perform the functions of his office,=94 the WHO said. The deputy director
general position, which under WHO rules would provide the acting
director general in a case of death, was unfilled.

But a number of countries questioned the legality of Nordstr=F6m assuming
the position, saying that this did not apply in times of death, sources
said. The WHO confirmed that many member states saw this document for
the first time on 23 May.

Nordstr=F6m will nevertheless remain the acting director general until a
new director general has been appointed. But because the post of deputy
director general has been unfilled for many years and because of
inflation, Nordstr=F6m=92s salary was higher in his old position than in hi=
s
new, sources said. This is expected to be discussed by the Executive
Board on 31 May, the WHO said.

Member countries may propose candidates for the director general post
from 1 June to 5 September, and these will be forwarded by the
secretariat to all member states by 5 October, the WHO said.

On 6-8 November, the 119th Executive Board meeting will work on a
shortlist of five candidates and interview them. It will then forward
the name of one candidate to a one-day special session of the World
Health Assembly on 9 November. This will be the first special session
assembly in the WHO=92s history, it said.

This was the most expensive solution, sources said, but in line with the
Executive Board=92s decision on 23 May to implement an =93accelerated
process=94 for choosing a new director general, the WHO said.

The 34 countries represented on the current Executive Board are:
Afghanistan, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil,
China, Denmark, Djibouti, El Salvador, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya,
Latvia, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Mexico,
Namibia, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Singapore, Slovenia, Sri Lanka,
Tonga, Thailand, Turkey and the United States.

The Candidates

At the moment there is informal discussion about possible candidates for
the director general post. Among the names circulating are the Mexican
Minister of Health, Julio Frenk; the head of UNAIDS Peter Piott;
Christopher Murray, faculty director of the Harvard University
Initiative for Global Health; and former president of Switzerland Ruth
Dreifuss, who headed the recently concluded Commission on Public Health,
Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights, two sources said. One
source also indicated that the heads of the six regional offices of the
WHO could also be interested, as could Asian countries such as Japan. It
is generally understood the Asian region is next in line to provide the
successor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Next Steps For R&D Working Group

Separately, the secretariat is expected to soon take forward the work of
setting up an inter-governmental working group that would start the work
mandated in a resolution adopted at the World Health Assembly last week.

The working group is supposed to come up with a =93strategy and plan of
action aimed at, inter alia, securing an enhanced and sustainable basis
or needs-driven, essential health research and development relevant to
diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries.=94

It is not yet clear who will head this group or when the decision will
be made, but names have been put forward such as Robert Ridley director
of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and
Training in Tropical Diseases, and Howard Zucker, WHO assistant director
general for health technology and pharmaceuticals. Zucker is from the
United States.