Brazzaville, 27 July 2015 – Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr Chris Elias, President of the Global Development Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Dr Trevor Mundel, President of the foundation’s Global Health Division, have reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen collaboration between the two organizations in the WHO African Region.

This follows a four-day dialogue held at the WHO Regional Office in Brazzaville, Congo between senior-level delegates of the foundation and WHO/AFRO. The main aim of this visit was to deepen relations between both parties to improve the health of people in the African Region.

Welcoming the Gates Foundation delegation to a special session with all staff within the WHO African Region, Dr Moeti stated, “The foundation is one of the biggest partners of WHO in our work of improving health in the Region and in the world.” She expressed WHO’s commitment to ensure that the partnership yields the expected health outcomes in countries within the Region.

In his remarks, Dr Chris Elias noted that partnership with WHO is critical. “I am particularly happy to work with Dr Moeti to understand how we can best optimize our relationship with the AFRO Region”, he said, adding that the Foundation’s work does not just concentrate on research and development for new health products and technologies but also on supporting the scale up of a multitude of proven interventions and implementing better ways to improve the performance of health services, including geospatial mapping to improve disease surveillance. He further praised WHO’s role in ongoing efforts to eradicate polio in the African Region.

Speaking on the importance of integration within and across countries, Dr Trevor Mundel, lauded the progress being made in some parts of the Region, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The one thing that is still lacking from the global health perspective is the real integration across various programmes within and across countries, and that’s where we are completely convinced that WHO/AFRO has an absolutely essential role,” he added.

The foundation delegation held a series of working sessions with various WHO AFRO Programme Clusters to identify specific areas of strengthening collaboration.

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For more information, please contact:

Collins Boakye-Agyemang, Boakyeagyemangc [at] who.int (Boakyeagyemangc[at]who[dot]int)
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