Robert Mugabe’s role with the WHO will be to tackle non-communicable diseases, such as heart attacks, strokes and asthma, across Africa.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has been removed as a WHO goodwill ambassador, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday following an outrage among donors and rights groups at his appointment.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who made the appointment at a high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Uruguay on Wednesday, said in a statement that he had listened to those expressing concerns.
The UN-run World Health Organisation (WHO) has provoked outrage by bestowing the prestigious role on Mugabe, 93, Zimbabwe’s first prime minister and second president, but the country’s effective leader for all 37 years since it gained independence.
Tedros, a former Ethiopian foreign minister, beat Britain’s David Nabarro in the contest to become director-general of the WHO, winning the votes of more than half its 194 member nations.
Chinese diplomats had campaigned hard for the Ethiopian, using Beijing’s financial clout and opaque aid budget to build support for him among developing countries.
In 2008, the charity Physicians for Human Rights released a report documenting failures in Zimbabwe’s health system, saying that Mugabe’s policies had led to a man-made crisis.
The United States, Canada and a host of other countries, health and human rights leaders criticized the WHO appointment.Prime Minister Justin Trudea had said it is “absolutely unacceptable, absolutely inconceivable that this individual would have a role as a goodwill ambassador.”
