Implementing WHO management reforms
In 2018, the Regional Office continued to develop essential instruments to enhance the reform process, in particular managerial reform (such as recruitment and administrative processes), working closely with the other levels of the Organization to achieve the goals set in WHO’s Twelfth General Programme of Work. It also continued to improve planning, forecasting, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation capacity, aiming to allocate and use its limited resources more efficiently.
Following the election of Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari as Regional Director, the management team of the Regional Office and technical departments started a resource mobilization initiative with key donors including the German Government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to secure sufficient flexible funds in support of the Regional Director’s transition. This initiative enabled the Regional Office to mobilize funds to cover transitional and transformational activities aligned to the new Thirteenth Global Programme of Work (GPW 13) and the Organization’s new vision for the Region, Vision 2023. The funds mobilized will be used for: (1) functional reviews of WHO’s country offices in the Region; (2) functional reviews of different departments in the Regional Office; (3) establishment of the results management framework for the Region; and (4) establishment of the regional communication strategy. These activities are aligned to WHO’s new transformation agenda and are intended to reshape the operating model of both the Regional Office and country offices to make them fit for purpose for implementation of GPW 13 and maximize strategic impact. A Transformation Team was established to oversee the process.
Managerial actions continued in support of the WHO transformation process, to reshape organizational processes in line with global strategy and the Regional Director’s approach. A regional Compliance and Risk Management Officer was successfully recruited. Accountability and controls remained at the heart of improvement efforts, focusing on compliance areas that had been mentioned repeatedly in preceding years’ internal and external audit observations: direct financial cooperation, direct implementation, imprest purchase orders, asset inventories and non-staff contractual arrangements. The use of monthly compliance dashboards throughout the year has increased the awareness and capacity of staff across the Region regarding key administrative issues. Activities were aimed at managing financial and administrative risks effectively, improving the internal control framework, reducing audit observations to a minimum and closing outstanding audit observations in a timely manner. In 2018, all audits resulted in satisfactory or partially satisfactory ratings, showing continued improvement in controls and a deep commitment to zero tolerance of non-compliance across the Region.
WHO will continue to address key challenges, including the need for capacity-building to help Member States remain aligned with evolving requirements, strengthening country-level perspectives in responding to acute and protracted emergencies, and readiness to deploy and deliver on a no-regrets basis, and continuing improvement in accountability and control, as embedded in regulatory frameworks.