Brazzaville — As part of the process for the election of the next World Health Organization Regional Director for Africa, a virtual live candidates’ forum will be held on Wednesday 2 April 2025 from 09:30 to 16:00 Brazzaville time.
The virtual forum, agreed by WHO Member States in the Region, is among the measures adopted to strengthen the transparency of the electoral process. It will be presided by Honourable Louise Mapleh Kpoto, Minister of Health and Social Welfare of Liberia and current First Vice-Chairperson of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa.
The forum is a platform provided to the candidates to detail their experience and expertise, and to present their vision of what they hope to achieve during their tenure to deliver on the core mandates of WHO in the African Region.
The five candidates (in country alphabetical order) are:
Dr Michel N’da Konan Yao, proposed by Cote d’Ivoire Dr Mohamed Lamine Dramé, proposed by Guinea Professor Janabi Mohamed Yakub, proposed by United Republic of Tanzania Professor Moustafa Mijiyawa, proposed by Togo
The candidates will each give a presentation of no more than 20 minutes.
Selection of questions
Each Member State joining the virtual forum may ask questions if it so wishes. Member States are invited to indicate the candidate(s) to whom they wish to ask a question by writing to the Regional Office at the following email address GoverningBodiesAfro [at] who.int (GoverningBodiesAfro[at]who[dot]int) no later than 26 March 2025, at 17:00 Brazzaville time. The tokens bearing the names of the Member States wishing to ask questions will be placed in the relevant bags (one for each candidate). Member States that nominated a candidate are not expected to ask the candidate they nominated a question.
After each candidate has made an oral presentation, the Chair will pick the tokens randomly, one-by-one, until the allotted time is exhausted. After each token is drawn, the corresponding Member States will be invited to ask a question, and the candidate invited to provide an answer.
Questions and answers
Member States will have up to one minute to ask one question only. Multiple part questions will not be permitted. Candidates will have up to three minutes to respond to each question. Each interview will conclude when the 40 minutes for the interview have elapsed, even if there are pending questions. However, a candidate will be permitted to complete their answer to the question being addressed when the 40 minutes elapse.
Timekeeping
A clock will be displayed on the screen to assist the participants to keep within the time limits during both parts of the interview.
The event will be livestreamed in English, French and Portuguese on WHO Regional Office for Africa social media channels and website through the links below:
X, WHO AFRO, YouTube
