[updated] Puska on lobbying tour. Analysis favours Frenk as frontrunner for WHO DG
Media report on an intensive global tour of Pekka PUSKA as she campaigns for WHO DG. The candidate held talks with the health officials of Thailand, Bahrain, Kenya and US (current members of the WHO Executive Board) and is now in New York to meet the delegations in the UN.
The prestigious and influential British medical journal The Lancet (yet known for its controversial and scandalous publications) has an excellent coverage of this election of WHO DG, as it did of the previous one.
Our readers may be interested in the analysis by the editor Richard Horton of the candidates’ profiles. Assessing the technical (click on the table) and administrative skills of contestants, the author makes a conclusion:
The Executive Board of WHO has resolved (EB 97. R10) that the Director-General should have “a strong technical and public health background and extensive experience in international health”, “competency in organisational management”, and “proven historical evidence for public health leadership”. By these criteria, and by the technical, administrative, and programmatic measures set out above, the selection of WHO's next Director-General is not as difficult as it might at first have seemed. Julio FRENK must surely be the objective front-runner for Director-General of WHO.
Well, he is. As he was four years ago…
3 comments:
Dr. Chen is the new DG... with the support of the American government...another triumph for Bush, another lose for the international community as again politics trumped talent.
Opps...Ms Chan...not Chen of course...I guess I did not her name...I wonder why?
This was posted by volkenrecht at Yahoo.com don't agree with it all, but much of it seems to make sense:
Not a Triumph for Health
Chinese and American muscle teamed up to provide a victory for corporate profit and corrupt electioneering over real concern for health of the individuals of the world. This happened as these two counties colluded to give the Director-General's nomination to Margaret Chan, a little known WHO official who champions the laissez faire politics of big business over real concerning for improving the health of individuals around the world.
Although the real test of Ms Chan will of course come when she takes up the post of Director-General, her campaign said much about her style. Announcing her candidacy very late in the game, the Chinese government set about buying African country’s votes, most notably at the large African Summit they organized just the week before the WHO elections. Moreover, rumors were rife, although for obvious reasons rarely confirmed, that both the Chinese and Japanese candidates were buying votes everywhere they could. Such means were not available to the Spanish, French, and Mexican finalist either because national law or mere morals prevented it. Ms Chan's backers on the other hand were in bed with the US and had learned the lesson of capitalism that he who pays plays and that wining is everything.
Bettering world reknown health champions like Mr. Bernard Koutchner and Mr. Julio Frenk, Chan's nomination was bought with the new riches of Chinese capitalism and the support of the United States.
This is what was won and lost both Koutchner and Frenk have been Ministers of Health and have experience with dealing with international health problems at an intergovernmental level. Chan was head of a city health department and was hardly known for her accomplishments (or lack thereof in WHO). Both Koutchner and Frenk ran campaigns based on their health policies and reforming the WHO, Chan ran a campaign plagued by allegations (often based on rumours coming from numerous sources, but supported by observable facts and events) that bordered on buying votes and bribery. Chinese officials were seen speaking to current and past WHO staff making many wonder if Chan late candidacy was not prompted by her seeing an advantage to stay as WHO staff to the last moment so as to use WHO contacts and resources to her ‘campaign’s’ advantage. We may never know the truth…unless and independent investigation is launched into this recent WHO election, something that is unlikely given that that the victor would have to make this decision.
Although lauded for her public health efforts as Hong Kong’s public health director, Chan is most widely known for covering up the SARS outbreak and handicapped WHO’s most prominent accomplishment in recent years, which was to combat SARS after prying the information out of the Chinese government. Despite what might have been seen as a rife with the US, Chan’s apparent commitment to “selling health” to the highest bidder (monetary or political) as she appears to have done in Hong Kong are a sad omen for WHO’s role in world health in coming years. The organization that has already been crippled by inept leadership is likely to suffer even more.
The next five (maybe ten) years of WHO. Selling the health of the world to the highest bidder. Let's hope Chan has more integrity than her campaign indicated. Otherwise we can expect the poor to suffer significantly.
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