For the first time, the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO) will select its new director through a voting process. The incoming leader will undoubtedly face a series of controversies and challenges during their term.
On May 22, the World Health Assembly began in Geneva, Switzerland, where international officials from WHO member countries convene to vote for the Director-General. Leading the WHO is a pivotal position, setting public health policy priorities that will receive focus, resources, and efforts in the coming years. While the WHO’s priorities are evidently in the realm of health, the definition, recognition, and framing of these priorities respond to political logics tied to the various regional offices, which operate within a segmented organizational system with multiple interests.
Departing from the post, after two terms, is Dr. Margaret Chan, who faced major crises during her tenure, such as the Ebola outbreak in three West African countries where more than 11,000 people died, and Chan was harshly criticized for the slow response to the health emergency. Another controversy recently uncovered was that the travel expenses of WHO executives were much higher than the annual budget for combating and preventing HIV/AIDS. The Associated Press even obtained access to the way trips were booked for officials and the places they stayed, such as luxury suites in crisis-stricken African countries, costing up to $1,000 per night. The WHO’s annual budget is funded by contributions from its 194 member countries. This fact highlighted some of the criticisms directed at the WHO regarding its priorities and the effectiveness of its management.
Faced with a world marked by vast social inequalities, it is evident that the range and type of diseases considered public health issues vary from region to region, country to country, and even, within our own country, from city to city. From communicable diseases resulting from the dire living conditions of millions in Africa and South America, to the epidemic—or at least, as the WHO has designated it—of childhood obesity, the public health dimensions of drug addiction, and mental health issues such as depression and dementia, there are vast differences in how diseases are framed, prevented, and conceived. The task would be simple if childhood obesity could be tackled with the same strategies used for communicable diseases, where proper potable water installations make a decisive difference.
Unfortunately, diseases like the "epidemic" of obesity or mental health conditions inherently carry controversies in their very definition; they are not caused by a single factor nor do they always present the same "symptoms," speaking from a biologicist perspective.
The major challenge for the new WHO director will be, on one hand, to confront new public health conditions that demand a rethinking of the currently entirely epidemiological vision of society’s health problems. On the other hand, it is necessary to recognize that the political structure of the organization requires a reassessment of how directives and regional representatives address their priorities in relation to the geopolitical conditions in which they operate, where sometimes the effectiveness of public health strategies is secondary to the publicizing of ineffective measures lacking long-term vision.
— This article was originally published in Spanish by Liliana Martínez Lomelí. Translation generated with AI from the original text.