On the first female WHO regional director

Tony Kirby¹ renders a sensitive and important Profile of Matshidiso Moeti, current WHO regional director for Africa. Despite representing 70% of the global health and social workforce,² women—and hence, their diverse views, realities, and experiences—continue to be grossly underrepresented in leadership positions across many fields, including global health.³ Therefore, it is a welcome event when major global multinational organisations, such as WHO, appoint female leaders to their highest echelons. History suggests that the presence of women in leadership positions is not always the incentive for transformative change towards gender equality. Nevertheless, we contend that these are important steps, insofar as they have the potential to drive the promotion of an institutional culture of gender parity, on which relies the meaningful inclusion of women in global health decision making.

Commendable as the Profile is, however, its title is inaccurate and misleading: the first female WHO regional director was Mirta Roses-Periago, who took office as the WHO regional director for the Americas in February, 2003,⁴ while Gro Harlem Brundtland was finalising her term as the first female director-general of WHO. As shown in the appendix, there were three other female WHO regional directors after Mirta Roses-Periago and before Matshidiso Moeti: Zsuzsanna Jakab, who took office as WHO regional director for Europe in February, 2010;⁵ Carissa F Etienne, current regional director for the Americas and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), who took office in February, 2013;⁶ and Poonam Khetrapal Singh, current WHO regional director for South-East Asia, who took office in February, 2014.¹ The appendix also shows the two remaining WHO Regional Offices that have not yet elected a woman as regional director: Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific.

In ignoring this rich history, the profile does a disservice to potential future female leaders, by rendering invisible the legacy of these role models. It also negates the struggles no doubt faced to overcome women's substantial barriers to leadership, so often necessitating fighting against discriminatory gender stereotypes and norms, resources, time limitations (often due to an overburden of unpaid care work), and even violence against and harassment of women seeking public office. With the adoption of Sustainable Development Goals target 5.5, the signatory countries recognised that dedicated commitments are needed to fully guarantee women's rights to “full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life”. In the Region of the Americas, the PAHO Gender Equality in Health Policy,⁷ approved 15 years ago, committed both the PAHO secretariat and its member states to gender parity. PAHO is also an active member of the Inter-American Task Force on Women's Leadership, which aims to contribute to accelerated commitment and actions across all sectors, and advance women's leadership in power and decision making. It is to be hoped that such commitments will open doors for many more female leaders in global public health in the future.

To set the record straight, therefore, Matshidiso Moeti is the fifth female WHO regional director since February, 2003, and the first female WHO regional director for Africa. We congratulate her achievements and those who have come before her.