New strategy
One year after Dr Tedros’s election, at the World Health Assembly in 2018, WHO Member States adopted the
13
th
General Programme of Work (GPW13)
, a 5-year-strategic plan with an emphasis on delivering a measurable impact in countries, to support countries in attaining the health-related targets in the Sustainable Development Goals.
WHO’s work was built on a new mission statement, to “Promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable”, and the ambitious “triple billion” targets: 1 billion more people benefiting from universal health coverage; 1 billion more people better protected from health emergencies; and 1 billion more people enjoying better health and well-being.
Transformed WHO
To enable WHO to support countries to deliver on these targets, and in close consultation with WHO’s Regional Directors, Dr Tedros led the development of a new operating model, aligning the Organization’s new structures and ways of working, and across the three levels of the Organization (Headquarters, Regional Offices and Country Offices).
To support the new operating model, several new divisions were established, including the Division of Science, the Division of Data and Delivery for Impact and the Division of Emergency Preparedness.
New processes
To make WHO more effective and efficient, 13 core processes were overhauled or initiated, in three areas:
Processes relating to technical work like data, norms and standards and policy dialogue;
External relations processes such as resource mobilization and communications;
And processes relating to management and administration, including planning and budgeting, supply chain, recruitment and performance management.
New culture
Strategies, operating models and processes will be ineffective without a talented and motivated workforce to implement them.
These values drive everything WHO does, from recruiting new talent to evaluating performance, to training leaders and managers, and considering staff for promotion.
Under Dr Tedros’s leadership, WHO achieved gender parity in its senior leadership for the first time, and initiated a new programme to pay interns a stipend.
Training and equipping health workers worldwide has been a priority area of work. Work is ongoing to launch the first
WHO Academy
, which aims to offer new and more effective methods of training, in multiple languages, across many areas of heath to working people.
Under Dr Tedros’s leadership, WHO has also engaged staff in defining a new
Values Charter
, which identifies the five key values that are at the heart of who we are: public service; technical excellence; integrity; collaboration; and compassion.