WHO Directors Meet With Staff This Week On Agency Transformation

[Note: this meeting has been postponed until 6 March, as “a few more days are needed to work out the remaining details that will provide a comprehensive picture of our collective way forward,” according to a new message from the director general.]

Top officials from the World Health Organization will meet on 28 February will staff to discuss the transformation of the UN agency to a new structural alignment, according to an internal WHO email from the director general to staff worldwide.

The staff communication from Director General Tedros Adhanom Gheyebresus (Dr Tedros) states: “On February 28th from 12:30-14:00 (CET), the Regional Directors and I will hold an all-staff meeting to discuss with you our collective vision for how we will set-up the entire organization to deliver GPW13, including our respective roles and our new, aligned structure.  We will also discuss next steps as we now move from the design of this new operating model to its full implementation by end-2019.”

“In my last message on Transformation I encouraged everyone to participate in Goals Week to understand our new planning process and how their individual work contributes our new strategy, GPW13.  This was a first step in aligning the work of each one of us to achieve our ‘triple billion’ goal,” Dr Tedros said in a message dated 21 February. “Next week, on 28 February, we will start aligning our entire Organization itself to deliver GPW13.”

The full email message is reprinted below:

Dear Colleagues,

In my last message on Transformation I encouraged everyone to participate in Goals Week to understand our new planning process and how their individual work contributes our new strategy, GPW13.  This was a first step in aligning the work of each one of us to achieve our ‘triple billion’ goal.

Next week, on 28 February, we will start aligning our entire Organization itself to deliver GPW13.

In parallel with our work to develop our new GPW13 strategy with Member States, the Regional Directors and I have been meeting monthly to consider how to optimize the set-up of WHO to deliver this new strategy.

We have been examining the role of Country Offices vs. Regional Offices vs. HQ to eliminate inefficiencies and enhance effectiveness.  We have compared our different structures to determine how these could be better aligned to improve our collaboration, accountabilities and work across Major Offices and levels.

In all of this we have considered the many ideas you have brought to us over the past 18 months – through our open-door meetings, 3-level working groups, Change Networks, staff seminars, staff survey and other mechanisms.  We have also listened to our Member States, who discussed Transformation in detail during our Executive Board (EB) meeting at end January and emphasized the need to ensure we are set up to deliver GPW13, lead the SDG Global Action Plan and play an active role at country level in the context of UN Reform.

On February 28th from 12:30-14:00 (CET), the Regional Directors and I will hold an all-staff meeting to discuss with you our collective vision for how we will set-up the entire organization to deliver GPW13, including our respective roles and our new, aligned structure.  We will also discuss next steps as we now move from the design of this new operating model to its full implementation by end-2019.

In advance of this all-staff meeting we will open the WHO Events App again (as we did during the Values Jam).  The App will have specific spaces where you can ask general questions, find resources and use a chat function to discuss our new operating model.

Along with the Regional Directors, I look forward to meeting with all of you to share our evolving vision for our great organization.

Changing together for a healthier world,

Dr Tedros

 

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