Huffington Post: A vision for WHO for 2017 and beyond
Flavia Bustreo, assistant director general for family, women’s, and children’s health at the WHO, and vice chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

“As I turn the calendar page to January 2017, I am keen to look ahead and examine our health challenges for the coming year and decade — challenges with goals and targets which have been well defined in our United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and especially, in the ‘health goal’ or SDG 3 — Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. For me, the greatest injustice of our time is that millions of adults, adolescents and children around the world die unnecessarily from preventable causes for which there are evidence-based interventions. … As Italy’s candidate in the upcoming election for director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), I aspire to bring leadership and solutions to this injustice. My vision for WHO’s work can be summarized in five words: Equity, Rights, Responsiveness, Evidence, and Partnership. Five words, but charged with so much meaning and power for global health. … I believe that my dynamic energy, knowledge, experience, expertise, and management record at WHO will lead the organization to the next step — to adapt to the challenges of the SDG-era, working towards achieving universal health coverage, and lead to realizing the right of every individual, everywhere, to the highest attainable standard of health…” (12/28).