WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION
The World Health Organization (WHO) is the United Nations specialized agency responsible for directing and coordinating international public health. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, it operates globally to monitor disease outbreaks, establish health standards, expand universal health coverage, and lead the response to public health emergencies.
Core Responsibilities:
- Emergency Response: Coordinates global action against health crises, such as recent efforts scaling isolation and treatment capacity for emerging Ebola strains in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. [1, 2]
- Disease Prevention: Spearheads campaigns to combat infectious diseases (e.g., HIV, malaria) and non-communicable diseases by tracking data and guiding clinical care. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
- Health Statistics & Data: Publishes broad analytical insights—like the annual World Health Statistics report—to measure global health trends, vaccination coverage, and life expectancy. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Structure & Governance
- Leadership: Headed by the Director-General (Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus). [1]
- World Health Assembly (WHA): The primary decision-making body comprising delegates from 194 Member States, which meets annually to set policies and budgets. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
- Regional Offices: Decentralized operations across six regional offices covering Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific.
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”Civil society partners are unique and powerful voices of the people that WHO serves. Their valuable resources, knowledge and close community connections can help WHO ensure our impact is much greater than when we act alone. It is only through working closely with civil society and other key partners that we will be able to deliver on our ambitious goal of achieving health for all.”
Dr Tedros, WHO Director-General
WHO is a specialized United Nations agency with a constitutional mandate as the Directing and Coordinating authority on international health work. Procurement is a critical function in support of the effective discharge of the WHO mandate. In order to fulfill its mandate and achieve its vision, WHO must procure a significant volume of goods and services.
On average, WHO buys over US$ 1 billion worth of goods and services every year to maintain operations in the field and to react to upcoming and recurring demands.
As a public organization entrusted with donor funds and committed to supporting developing economies, the objective of procurement activities within WHO is the timely acquisition of goods and services while adhering to guiding principles.