Message from the Regional Director
Dr Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti, from Botswana, is the first woman to be elected as WHO Regional Director for Africa. Over the past seven years, Dr Moeti has led the transformation of WHO in Africa to ensure the Organization is accountable, effective and driven by results.
Since my election into office in 2015, I have led a Transformation Agenda that is widely acknowledged to have improved the performance and effectiveness of WHO in the African Region. Tremendous progress has been realized through the Transformation Agenda, including improved response capacity to health emergences like COVID-19 pandemic and Ebola virus disease outbreak. The flagship of the Transformation Agenda has been the successful eradication of neglected tropical diseases in endemic countries and the eradication of wild polio virus in the African region in 2020. The Transformation Agenda has since been adopted to inform WHO global reforms and the Region has been regarded as the precursor to a number of initiatives that are currently being implemented to transform WHO into a modern organization that works seamlessly to make a measurable difference in people’s health at country level.
I have seen the African Region evolve, particularly in the progress Member States are making towards universal health coverage (UHC). Ensuring people can access the services they need without facing financial hardship, leads to improvements in life expectancy, well-being and national development. Out of 47 Member States in the African Region, 40 now have national health plans to guide efforts towards UHC. Most countries in the Region are implementing reforms to achieve UHC, from financing reforms in Gabon, Mali, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia, to service package design reforms in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Mozambique.
We strategically repositioned our regional and country office teams to better respond to and deliver impactful results for our Member States and have established multi-country assignment teams to bring quality, expert technical support to where it is needed most – at country level. Leading my team in advancing these transformative efforts and working alongside ministers of health and partners to advocate and ensure political commitment for a healthier Africa, is a daily reminder for me that we are collectively moving closer towards making health for all a reality in the Region.
In November 2017, WHO undertook a global organizational Culture Survey involving over 1500 staff in the Region. The results of the survey showed us that the Transformation Agenda in the African Region was taking root. This was reaffirmed in the 2021 evaluation of the global WHO reform, in which the results of WHO global workforce survey noted small but positive change in WHO AFRO’s organizational culture. I am very encouraged by these findings which bear witness to the steadfast commitment of each and every staff member to transforming WHO in the African Region into the leading public health agency that our stakeholders and staff want and deserve.
We are now at a turning point in our journey of transformation; the consolidation phase, which presents a unique opportunity to take-stock, adapt and consolidate the Transformation Agenda for sustainable and impactful change. In this phase, we will institutionalize change achievements, build on the lessons learned in implementing the Transformation Agenda since 2015 and accelerate country-level transformation and ownership to promote learning and sustain transformation gains realized. We will continue to embed a value-based organizational culture and uphold the highest ethical standards in the delivery of our day-to-day work. We will promote a healthy working environment to ensure a proper work-life balance, diversity and inclusion, individual dignity and mutual respect across our entire workforce. And, we will deepen our advocacy for appropriate financing for health and strengthen collaboration for improvements in health security and the attainment of universal health coverage in every Member State.
My resolve and that of my team to strengthen Africa’s public health system, ensure equitable access to quality health services and programmes and safeguard health has never been stronger. I am confident that we are stronger together and call upon your commitment once more to consolidate and build a lasting health transformation legacy for all of Africa.