WHO candidate Hanan Balkhy: ‘The bottom line is that the funding is slimmer’

Inside Geneva has partnered with the Global Health Centre at Geneva’s Graduate Institute to bring you exclusive interviews with the candidates for director general of the World Health Organization (WHO). Who wants to lead our top public health body?

Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva for SWI swissinfo.ch as well as the BBC.

Hanan Balkhy is currently regional director for the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean regional office, so she’s something of a WHO insider. A native of Saudi Arabia, she was educated in the United States and always wanted to be a doctor. Doing the WHO’s top job, she says, is a way “to serve the broader humanity.”

She is especially concerned about antibiotic resistance, about the effects of climate change on health, and healthcare in conflict zones. She also warns about a “normalisation” of attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers. But she is also well aware that the WHO needs to reform and do more with less money. “The bottom line is that the funding is slimmer.”

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