World Health Organization

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations, acting as a coordinating authority on international public health, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Historically, WHO inherited much of the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health Organization (HO), which had been an agency of the League of Nations. The WHO was established by the UN on April 7, 1948. The current Acting Director-General is Anders Nordström, following the sudden death of Lee Jong-wook.

Mission

WHO's constitution states that its mission "is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health". Its major task is to combat disease, especially key infectious diseases, and to promote the general health of the peoples of the world. As well as coordinating international efforts to monitor outbreaks of infectious disease such as SARS, malaria, and AIDS, it also has programmes to combat such diseases, by developing and distributing vaccines. After years of fighting smallpox, WHO declared in 1979 that the disease had been eradicated - the first disease in history to be completely eliminated by deliberate human design. WHO is nearing success in developing vaccines against malaria and schistosomiasis and aims to eradicate polio within the next few years.

WHO also compiles the widely followed International Classification of Diseases (ICD). The tenth revision of the ICD was released in 1992 and a searchable version is available online on the WHO website, although it is not comprehensive. Later revisions are indexed and available in hardcopy versions. The WHO does not permit simultaneous classification in two separate areas.

The constitution of WHO defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not as consisting only of the absence of disease or infirmity or mental retardation.

In addition to its work in eradicating disease, WHO also carries out campaigns — for example, to boost consumption of fruits and vegetables worldwide, or to discourage tobacco consumption – and conducts research: for instance, into whether or not the electromagnetic field surrounding cell phones has a negative influence on health. Some of this work can be controversial, such as the April 2003 WHO report which recommended that sugar be no more than 10% of a healthy diet, which led to lobbying by the sugar industry against this recommendation ^*.

In addition to WHO's stated mission, international treaties assign the Organization a variety of responsibilities. For instance, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the Convention on Psychotropic Substances call on WHO to issue binding scientific and medical assessments of psychoactive drugs and recommend how they should be regulated. In this way, WHO acts as a check on the power of the drug policymaking Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

Structure

WHO Member States ^* appoint delegations to the World Health Assembly, WHO's supreme decision-making body. The Assembly generally meets in May each year, and as well as appointing the Director-General (for five-year terms), supervises the financial policies of the Organization, and reviews and approves the proposed programme budget. The Assembly elects 32 members who are technically qualified in the field of health for three-year terms to an Executive Board. The main functions of the Board are to give effect to the decisions and policies of the Assembly, to advise it and generally to facilitate its work.

Membership

WHO has 192 Member States, including all UN Member States except Liechtenstein, and 2 non-UN-members, Niue and the Cook Islands. Territories that are not UN Member States may join as Associate Members (with full information but limited participation and voting rights) if approved by an Assembly vote: Puerto Rico and Tokelau are Associate Members. Entities may also be granted observer status - examples include the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Holy See (Vatican City).

The Republic of China (Taiwan), which was in effect expelled from the UN in 1971 (and from the WHO one year later), is campaigning for observer status under the name "Taiwan Health Entity", against the opposition of the People's Republic of China, which replaced the ROC in the WHO in 1972 and sees the participation of Taiwan as violation of its One-China Policy. The ROC government contends that the PRC does not represent the interests of the people of Taiwan and that non-state entities such as Niue are members.

Secretariat

The day-to-day work of WHO is carried out by its Secretariat, which is staffed by some 3,500 health and other experts and support staff, working at headquarters, in the six regional offices, and in countries. WHO is also represented by WHO Goodwill Ambassadors.

Regional Offices

World Health Organisation regional offices.PNG|thumb|Regional offices and regions of the WHO:

]] Quite uncharacteristically for a UN Agency, the six (6) Regional Offices of WHO have a remarkable amount of autonomy. Each Regional Office is headed by a Regional Director (RD), who is elected by the Regional Committee for that Region, for a once-renewable five-year term. The name of the RD-elect is then transmitted to the WHO Executive Board, at the headquarters in Geneva, which proceeds to confirm the appointment. It is rare that an elected Regional Director not be confirmed.

The Regional Committee of WHO for each region consists of all the Health Department heads, in all the governments of the countries that constitute the Region. Aside from electing the Regional Director, the Regional Committee is also in charge of setting the guidelines for the implementation of all the Health and other policies adopted by the World Health Assembly, within their region. The Regional Committe also serves as a progress review board for the actions of WHO within the Region.

The Regional Director is effectively the head of the WHO for their particular region. The RD manages and/or supervises a staff of health and other experts, at the regional headquarters and in specialized centers. The RD is also the direct supervising authority — concomitantly with the WHO Director General — of all the heads of WHO country offices within their region, known as WHO Representatives.

The Regional Offices are:

Regional Office for Africa (AFRO)^I, with headquarters in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. AFRO includes most of Africa, with the exception of Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and Morocco which belong to EMRO. Somalia is also not counted as it does not have an official government, though it is in the process of getting one.
Regional Office for Europe (EURO), with headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Regional Office for South East Asia (SEARO), with headquarters in New Delhi, India. North Korea is served by SEARO.
Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (EMRO), with headquarters in Cairo, Egypt. EMRO includes the countries of Africa, and particularly in the Maghrib, that are not included in AFRO, as well as the countries of the Middle East.
Regional Office for Western Pacific (WPRO), with headquarters in Manila, Philippines. WPRO covers all the Asian countries not served by SEARO and EMRO, and all the countries in Oceania. South Korea is served by WPRO.
Regional Office for the Americas (AMRO), with headquarters in Washington, DC, United States of America. It is better known as the Pan American Health Organization, or PAHO.

Country Offices

The World Health Organization operates 147 country and liaison offices, in all its regions. The presence of a country office is generally motivated by a need, stated by the member country.

The country office is headed by a WHO Representative (WR), who is not a national of that country, and who holds ranks, and due privileges, similar to those of a Head of Diplomatic Mission or an Ambassador.

The office consists of the WR, and several health and other experts, both foreign and local, as well as the necessary support staff.

The main functions of WHO country offices include being the primary adviser of that country's government in matters of health and pharmaceutical policies, play a coordinating role for the action of other International and/or non-governmental organizations when health is concerned, and more recently, to provide leadership and coordination for emergency and disaster medical relief efforts.

Partnership

WHO is financed by contributions from member states. In recent years, WHO's work has involved more collaboration with NGOs and the pharmaceutical industry, as well as with foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Some of these collaborations may be considered public-private partnerships ^*; half the WHO budget is financed by private foundations and industry.

Some WHO-private sector partnerships

PATH: Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (http://www.path.org)
IAVI: International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (http://www.iavi.org)
MMV: Medicines for Malaria Venture (http://www.mmv.org)
MVI: Malaria Vaccine Initiative (http://www.malariavaccine.org)
TB Alliance: Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (http://www.tballiance.org)
Aeras: Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation (http://aeras.org)
IPM: International Partnership for Microbicides (http://www.ipm-microbicides.org)
PDVI: Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative (http://www.pdvi.org)
FIND: Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (http://www.finddiagnostics.org)
IOWH: Institute for One World Health (http://www.oneworldhealth.org)
DNDi: Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (http://www.dndi.org)

Directors-General of WHO

Name	Country	Term of Office
Brock Chisholm	Canada	1948–1953
Marcolino Gomes Candau	Brazil	1953–1973
Halfdan T. Mahler	Denmark	1973–1988
Hiroshi Nakajima	Japan	1988–1998
Gro Harlem Brundtland	Norway	1998–2003
Lee Jong-wook	South Korea	2003–2006 (passed away on 22/5)
Anders Nordström (acting)	Sweden	2006–

Former Directors General

Other notable persons associated with WHO

Personnel policy

The World Health Organization is an agency of the United Nations and as such shares a core of common personnel policy with other agencies.

Smokers

The World Health Organization has recently banned the recruitment of cigarette smokers, to promote the principle of a tobacco-free work environment.

Same-sex marriages

Despite their independence in matters of personnel policy, The World Health Organization and other agencies of the United Nations voluntarily discriminate between opposite-sex marriages and same-sex marriages, as well as discriminating between employees on the basis of nationality. Agencies of the United Nations will recognize same-sex marriages only if the country of citizenship of the employees in question recognizes the marriage. Individual agencies do, in some cases, provide limited benefits to domestic partners of their staff.

External links