WHO Welcomes Appointment of Chair-elect of Gavi Board Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
*Statement by World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General, Dr Margaret Chan
WHO welcomes the appointment of the Chair-elect of the Board of Gavi,
the Vaccine Alliance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. She will take up the
position of Chair from January 2016.
Dr Okonjo-Iweala is a
renowned development economist and former Nigerian Finance Minister. She
brings more than 33 years of development and financial expertise to the
Gavi Board at a critical period for immunization in developing
countries.
Earlier this year, WHO warned that vaccines are not
being delivered equitably or reliably and that only 1 out of the 6 key
vaccination targets for 2015 is currently on track – the introduction of
under-utilized vaccines, a target to which Gavi has contributed
significantly.
In taking up the position of Board Chair, Dr
Okonjo-Iweala will succeed Dagfinn Høybråten, a former Norwegian
Minister of Health and current Secretary General of the Nordic Council
of Ministers. She will also work closely with Dr Flavia Bustreo, WHO
Assistant Director-General for Family, Women’s and Children’s Health,
who is Vice Chair of Gavi.
Since 2000, Gavi has supported the
immunization of more than half a billion additional children, leading to
7 million future deaths being averted.
WHO is one of the
founding members of Gavi, a public-private partnership formed in 2000,
to address global inequities in access to and coverage of available
lifesaving vaccines. Over the next 5 years, WHO will continue to lead
collective efforts to achieve and sustain universal vaccination coverage
as outlined in the Decade of Vaccines Global Vaccine Action Plan.
WHO plays a critical role providing global recommendations on
immunization, ensuring that vaccines are safe and of assured quality,
and providing support to countries to implement immunization programmes
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