World Health Assembly will choose WHO chief without job description
The World Health Assembly will choose WHO’s ninth Director-General next May without having defined the job.
Recruitment professionals would mock any hiring manager who posted an opening detailing candidate requirements while omitting the actual job description. And yet, that is what the World Health Assembly does. Candidates vying for the Director-General role must satisfy nine distinct standards, which encompass a robust technical health background paired with international exposure, strong communication and leadership abilities, administrative proficiency, political, social, and cultural awareness, dedication to the WHO, satisfactory health, and proficiency in a working language.
Operating Without a Job Description
The issue stems from the constitution labeling the Director-General as the primary technical and administrative leader of the organization without specifying what those responsibilities actually involve. This ambiguity led to 78 years of rule-making that produced documentation on the election process without specifying the incumbent’s actual duties.
Successive World Health Assembly resolutions have loosened specificities over time. Back in 2012, an update to the Director-General qualifications eliminated the 1996 mandate requiring documented proof of public health leadership, replacing it with subjective behavioural assessments. The stated reason was to give polarized electors greater political flexibility.
That creates a core accountability problem. If member states do not define what they want their chief officer to do, establishing metrics to assess delivery becomes nearly impossible.
Leadership Traps and Political Incentives
Allowing political leaders to define their own jobs and mark their own homework tempts them to bend organizational strategies. Candidates publish policy manifestos on elaborate websites during campaigns, but once an election concludes, those platforms are largely forgotten, and no one follows up on whether the winner adheres to initial pledges.
Governance in international agencies veers toward the principle that the familiar option is safer. All previous Directors-General who sought a second term secured one, despite shortcomings evident during their initial years in office.
Beyond these political pressures, non-communicable diseases now account for 74% of global deaths. The fastest-growing burdens are diabetes, dementia, mental ill-health, and drug use, presenting a stark contrast to an organization originally built to fight infectious diseases.
Global Health Metrics Stall as Poverty and Diseases Rise
Promised progress across global health metrics has stalled. The service coverage index for universal health coverage inched up only from 68 to 71 between 2015 and 2023. A quarter of humanity faces financial hardship from out-of-pocket healthcare payments, and 1.6 billion people were marooned or pushed deeper into poverty in 2022. A shortfall of 11.1 million health workers is forecast by 2030.
Old challenges have also returned. Cholera killed more than 7,800 people last year, driven largely by seven conflict-affected countries accounting for nine out of ten deaths, marking the highest annual incidence since 1999. Malaria incidence is rising, tuberculosis remains the world’s leading infectious killer, and vaccine confidence has declined, leaving 11 million people to contract measles in 2024.
Next Steps Toward the 2027–2032 Term
Climate change has emerged as a direct health determinant, with excessive heat killing an average of 546,000 people annually, a 23% increase since the 1990s. Meanwhile, the WHO recorded 1,283 attacks on healthcare in places like Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine.
The next Director-General, whose initial tenure will run from 2027 to 2032, will face these converging pressures alongside the reality of missing the 2030 targets for the Sustainable Development Goals. The World Health Assembly is scheduled to elect its ninth Director-General next May in Geneva.