WHO releases candidates for its top job in Africa; none are women, again

The World Health Organization’s regional office for Africa found itself in an unprecedented and tragic situation last November. Three months after Tanzanian politician Dr. Faustine Ndugulile won the election to become the new regional director, he unexpectedly died while receiving medical treatment in India. Ndugulile was slated to replace Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, who led the regional office for 10 years, in February. After his death, in the interim, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appointed Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu to serve as the organization’s acting regional director. Instead of having an election with the previous set of candidates, WHO held a meeting in January to decide the next move. It then put out a new call for African governments to put forward candidates — and only one candidate carried over from the last batch: Niger’s Dr. Boureima Hama Sambo. A virtual candidates forum will be held on April 2 where the candidates can lay out priorities and their strategies for achieving them. This will be followed by a meeting of African ministers of health and their representatives on May 18 in Geneva to decide who will become the next regional director. Akin to a ‘manel’ But it’s a race that, once again, lacks gender diversity. While there was criticism that the last set of candidates were all male — the same thing happened again: Five men are in the running. Dr. Magda Robalo, interim executive director of Women in Global Health, said that it’s “disheartening” to see that no countries put forward female candidates for a second time in a row. She said this comes at a time where there is a “rapid and steady decrease” in women leading directorates and a very low number of women leading WHO country offices in the agency’s regional office for Africa — last year, there were only five women out of 47 leaders of these offices. “There is clearly no justifiable reason for women, in all their diversity, to be absent from such selection processes. A gender-balanced leadership is a commitment that should be upheld by the leaders in Region, with clear accountability measures,” she added. She said that her organization stands ready to work with the incoming regional director “to drive progress on women’s leadership and to ensure decent work for the women health workers who hold up the ceiling of our health systems, in Africa and across the world.” Boghuma Titanji, assistant professor of medicine at Emory University, echoed these thoughts in a LinkedIn post comment, where she said “this is not different from ‘manels’ at scientific meetings and reflects poorly on the organization.” Dr. Githinji Gitahi, group chief executive officer of Amref Health Africa, also told Devex he was disappointed and that the continent has “so many deserving women, but their governments haven’t found it worthy to nominate them to compete equally with their male counterparts.” “[It] shows we still have a long way to closing the gender gap in global health leadership,” he added. The candidates Niger’s Dr. Boureima Hama Sambo Sambo, who was born in Niamey, Niger, in 1960, is currently WHO representative to the Democratic Republic of Congo and has served as WHO representative in Ethiopia and Gabon, as well as on an interim basis in Rwanda. This included leading WHO’s Ethiopia office during the war in Tigray and the northern part of the country, and while the country faced severe drought. He also served as director of climate and other determinants of health at WHO’s headquarters, and other roles in the WHO Africa regional office. He started his career as chief medical officer in Tera Medical District in Niger. According to documents submitted to WHO, his vision for the role is “a healthy, prosperous, and safe African region — where everyone, everywhere in the region - enjoys a healthy and productive life.” He said he would prioritize mitigating the impacts climate change and conflicts have on health, building capacities of national and local health systems, sharing evidence and good practices with countries that are context specific, and promoting “African solutions to African problems,” among other things. Tanzania’s professor Mohamed Yakub Janabi Janabi, born on the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro in Moshi, Tanzania, in 1962, is senior adviser on health matters to President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania and executive director of Muhimbili National Hospital, Tanzania’s largest hospital. He previously served as executive director at Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute in Dar es Salaam, and chief health adviser and head physician to former Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, among other roles. According to documents submitted to WHO, his vision for the role “is a healthier, resilient, and prosperous Africa where everyone has access to quality healthcare, supported by equitable, innovative, and sustainable systems that ensure optimal well-being.” He said he would prioritize improving access to essential health services, addressing financial barriers that prevent care, reducing maternal and infant mortality, strengthening primary health care, pandemic preparedness, and building climate-resilient health systems, among other things. Togo’s professor Moustafa Mijiyawa Mijiyawa, who was born in Mango, Togo, in 1958, is a former minister of health and public hygiene of Togo, who served between 2015 and 2024. Under his tenure as minister, the country eliminated four neglected tropical diseases, managed a major meningitis outbreak, and provided care for victims of terrorist attacks, among other things. His ministry worked to put in place universal health coverage that was extended to the entire population in January 2024. He was the first chair of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s board of directors from 2019 to 2023, as well as chair of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa in 2021, 2022, and 2023. He is also a professor of rheumatology with “over 30 years of experience in patient care, medical education, physiotherapy, prosthetics, and orthotics in and outside Togo.” According to documents submitted to WHO, his vision for the role includes making “the African continent a space where access to health is made possible for all, by an efficient, sustainable and resilient system, through a program aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.” He said he would prioritize diversifying health financing, which would include encouraging countries to invest more in health, promoting accountability, decentralizing the management of health systems, improving the management of taking care of the elderly while preserving their role in African traditions, among other things. Guinea’s Dr. Mohamed Lamine Dramé Dramé, who was born in Kindia, Guinea, in 1953, has served as an independent international consultant since 2018 providing technical services to African governments and their development partners. He’s president of the nongovernmental organization GUINÉE SUCCESS, a visiting professor at the University of Heidelberg, and associate lecturer at Gamal Abdel Nasser University of Conakry. He’s worked in Benin and Mozambique and for institutions including the Belgium Agency for Development and at WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, among other roles. According to documents submitted to WHO, his vision for the role includes a region “where all populations, in each country, can attain the highest possible level of health and access to quality care, and where WHO support adds concrete value in terms of policies, resources, and operations, to country efforts in promoting health, keeping the world safe and serving the vulnerable.” He said he would prioritize strengthening health systems, universal access to quality primary care, addressing the health impacts of climate change and the multiple complex crises that affect the continent. He said he would also work to increase domestic health expenditures and private sector investments, as well as “avoiding inter-sector turf wars and competition for scarce resources,” among other things. Côte d'Ivoire’s Dr. N'da Konan Michel Yao Yao, who was born in Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire, in 1968, has spent 20 years working with WHO, and is currently serving as the agency’s director of strategic health operations at the headquarters, where he coordinates responses to emergencies. His work has included travel to more than 33 countries in Africa, and indirect support to all of the countries in WHO’s regional office for Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic as incident manager, among other roles. According to documents submitted to WHO, his vision for the role is of “healthier African communities, supported by a WHO Regional Office for Africa that is highly responsive to the needs of Member States.” He said he would prioritize strengthening research and use of innovations in the health sector, ensuring the availability of essential health services, the development of resilient health systems, stepping up the fight against maternal and infant mortality, and accelerating the reduction of the burden of communicable diseases, among other things. During the election last year, Côte d’Ivoire withdrew Yao’s nomination. In a LinkedIn post at the time, Yao wrote he respects this “sovereign decision” and hopes for “a peaceful campaign far from lies and attacks and based on smooth judgement about Candidates’ capacity and project.” He previously wrote about fake news related to his candidacy, in regard to another person with a similar name who was accused of trying to smuggle genetic material from the Ebola virus across the Canada-U.S. border.