Regional directors
WHO / Jess Hoffman
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Credits
Dr Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti, Regional Director for Africa
Dr Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti from Botswana was elected as WHO Regional Director for Africa on 1 February 2015. Dr Moeti is the first woman WHO Regional Director for Africa.
Dr Moeti aims to build a responsive, effective and result-driven regional
secretariat that can advance efforts towards universal health coverage and accelerate progress toward global development goals, while tackling emerging threats. Strong partnerships will underpin every aspect of the Regional Office's work during her tenure.
Dr Moeti is a public health veteran, with more than 35 years of national and international experience. She joined WHO’s Africa Regional Office in 1999 and has served as Deputy Regional Director, Assistant Regional Director, Director of Noncommunicable
Diseases, WHO Representative for Malawi, and Coordinator of the Inter-Country Support Team for the South and East African countries.
Biography
Letter of Representation
Delegation of Authority
Dr Jarbas Barbosa, WHO Regional Director for the Americas
Dr Jarbas Barbosa, a national of Brazil, was elected Director of the Pan American Health Organization by Member States during the 30th Pan American Sanitary Conference on 28 September 2022. Dr Barbosa began his five-year term on 1 February 2023.
From July 2017 until his appointment as Director, he served as PAHO Assistant Director, leading five technical departments and PAHO’s Revolving Fund – a special program to increase equitable access to vaccines in the region. During the COVID-19
pandemic, Dr Barbosa led the Organization’s efforts to support Member States in reducing the impact of the emergency on priority public health programs. He also led the PAHO Task Force for COVID-19 Vaccination in the Americas and launched a
platform to expand production of mRNA vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean to reduce the region’s dependency on imports during future health emergencies.
His vision for the future of PAHO is to make it the leading Organization in supporting the countries of the Americas with the most innovative and efficient strategies to recover better than they were before, overcome inequalities, and build resilient health systems to improve the response to emergencies and disasters and to achieve universal health care.
Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia
Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, an Indian national, became the first woman to assume the office of WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia on 1 February 2014. Dr Khetrapal Singh’s priority areas of work in the Region are: addressing the persisting
and emerging epidemiological and demographic challenges; promoting universal health coverage and robust health systems; strengthening emergency risk management for sustainable development; articulating a strong regional voice in the global health
agenda.
She served for over two decades as a civil servant in India as member of the Indian Administrative Services. She was the Health Secretary of the State of Punjab, with a population of 27 million and a health budget of US$ 350 million.
In 1987
she moved to the Health, Population and Nutrition Department of The World Bank. In 1998 she joined WHO headquarters as Executive Director, Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments Cluster, and a member of the Director-General’s Cabinet.
Dr Khetrapal Singh served as WHO Deputy Regional Director for the South-East Asia Region from 2000 to 2013. In February 2013, she joined the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of the Government of India as Advisor for International Health, where
her principal task was to strengthen global health outcomes and provide guidance to the Ministry to take forward the international health agenda.
Biography
Letter of Representation
Delegation of Authority
Dr Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe
Dr Hans Kluge is the WHO Regional Director for Europe. His term began on 1 February 2020, following his nomination by the WHO Regional Committee for Europe and appointment by the WHO Executive Board.
Throughout his career, beginning as a family doctor in Belgium, along a journey to Somalia, Liberia, the prisons in Siberia, former Soviet Union countries, Myanmar and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and most recently leading the Division of Health Systems and Public Health at WHO/Europe for a decade, Dr Kluge has always been committed to achieving better health for all with a focus on the vulnerable.
As Regional Director, Dr Kluge’s vision for the WHO European Region is “United action for better health”, working in partnership to achieve universal health coverage, address health emergencies and promote healthier populations.
Dr Kluge is from Belgium. He is married and has two daughters.
Biography
Delegation of Authority
Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean
Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari from Oman was appointed as WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean by WHO’s Executive Board at its 143rd session and assumed office on 1 June 2018.
Dr Al-Mandhari has made a substantial, positive contribution to the development and modernization of Oman’s health system, which has witnessed qualitative improvements in recent years, particularly in areas such as patient safety.
A specialist in family and community medicine, Dr Al-Mandhari was Head of Quality Management and Development at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital from 2005 to 2006, followed by Deputy Director-General for Clinical Affairs until 2010. In 2013, he was appointed Director-General of Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, later becoming Director-General of the Quality Assurance Centre at the Ministry of Health. Dr Al-Mandhari has also worked as a senior consultant in family medicine and public health in Oman since 2009.
In his acceptance speech to the Executive Board, Dr Al-Mandhari noted that the Region was facing major challenges caused by natural and manmade crises and sociopolitical and economic instability. He identified the main public health priorities as health
emergencies including disease outbreaks, communicable and noncommunicable diseases, health system strengthening, and maternal and child health.
Biography
Letter of representation
Delegation of authority
Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific ad interim
Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab has been Regional Director for the Western Pacific ad interim since March 2023, after a period as Officer-in-Charge of the Western Pacific since August 2022. Dr Jakab will serve as Regional Director ad interim until a new Regional Director takes office on 1 February 2024. The new Regional Director will be nominated by the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific in October 2023 and appointed by the WHO Executive Board in January 2024.
Dr Jakab has served as WHO Deputy Director-General since 2019 after serving as WHO Regional Director for Europe from 2010-2019.
She has held a number of high-profile national and international public health policy positions in the last 3 decades, including as the founding Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm, Sweden. Between 2005 and 2010, Dr Jakab built the centre into an internationally respected centre of excellence in the fight against infectious diseases.
WHO
Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, Deputy Director-General
Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, Deputy Director-General
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