On June 12, GSL Director Steven Hoffman was quoted in an article in the Globe and Mail discussing the impact of Margaret Chan, the former Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), on the organization.
In the article, Hoffman, who was a project manager at the WHO, when Chan was at the helm, commented that she saw the role of Director-General as being “a servant of member states.” He further complimented Dr. Chan both for helping to better integrate China into global health governance, as well as for making changes to the WHO’s emergencies program, by elevating its importance, assigning it more resources and developing surge capacity for times of need.
Those changes meant that the WHO in the current pandemic “has performed better than the WHO has ever performed in an emergency.” However, none of these changes led by Dr. Chan changed the fact that the WHO is an agency that can “advise but never direct; guide but never govern; lead but never advocate; evaluate but never judge. It’s this whole impossible situation they’re faced with.”
Read the full article here.
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