Kickbusch and colleagues highlight the complex challenges WHO’s next Director-General faces. Under-funded and under-resourced, WHO must continue to aspire to do ‘more with less’. However, despite the difficulty in achieving consensus amongst disparate stakeholders in global health, one area where there is agreement centres on the importance of training tomorrow’s global health workforce.
The WHO Internship Programme is designed to build future leaders in public health and trains 1000 young professionals each year (1). Strengthening national health systems through such programmes builds a pipeline of locally trained professionals with an understanding of international health and its multilateral institutions. In the long term, these and other human resources for health initiatives can lead to improved health policymaking and less reliance on costly aid.
However, WHO’s programme currently meets neither of these objectives. Its own data shows that fewer than 20% of its 1000 annual trainees are from the developing world. More than two-thirds of Member States – including most of those with high disease burdens - did not participate in the programme in 2015 (1, 2). This is a glaring missed opportunity for WHO and represents poor value for Member States, who have raised their concerns at its governing bodies (1,3,4).
With a willingness for Internship Programme overhaul expressed by senior management at WHO (1,3) – the stage is all but set for the next Director-General to lead reform of an internal training programme that, despite being in its 50th year, continues to undermine rather than advance WHO’s mandate.
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Kickbusch and colleagues highlight the complex challenges WHO’s next Director-General faces. Under-funded and under-resourced, WHO must continue to aspire to do ‘more with less’. However, despite the difficulty in achieving consensus amongst disparate stakeholders in global health, one area where there is agreement centres on the importance of training tomorrow’s global health workforce.
The WHO Internship Programme is designed to build future leaders in public health and trains 1000 young professionals each year (1). Strengthening national health systems through such programmes builds a pipeline of locally trained professionals with an understanding of international health and its multilateral institutions. In the long term, these and other human resources for health initiatives can lead to improved health policymaking and less reliance on costly aid.
However, WHO’s programme currently meets neither of these objectives. Its own data shows that fewer than 20% of its 1000 annual trainees are from the developing world. More than two-thirds of Member States – including most of those with high disease burdens - did not participate in the programme in 2015 (1, 2). This is a glaring missed opportunity for WHO and represents poor value for Member States, who have raised their concerns at its governing bodies (1,3,4).
With a willingness for Internship Programme overhaul expressed by senior management at WHO (1,3) – the stage is all but set for the next Director-General to lead reform of an internal training programme that, despite being in its 50th year, continues to undermine rather than advance WHO’s mandate.
References
1. Barnett-Vanes A, Feng C, Jamnejad M, Jun J. Towards an equitable internship programme at WHO: is reform nigh? BMJ Global Health 2016 http://gh.bmj.com/content/1/2/e000088
2. WHO. Human resources: annual report. A69/52 2016; 69th World Health Assembly and accompanying tables. http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA69/A69_52-en.pdf. http://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/budget/WHA69_HR_2015.pd...
3. WHO Summary and Verbatim Records of Third Committee B meeting. WHA69/PSR. 26th May 2016. http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA69-A-B-PSR/A69_BPSR3-en.pdf
4. WHO's internship programme: update. 2015. EBPBAC23/2. http://apps.who.int/gb/pbac/pdf_files/pbac23/PBAC23_2-en.pdf
Competing interests: No competing interests