GENEVA: The head of the World Health Organisation on Sunday reversed his decision to name Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador following widespread uproar against the appointment.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former Ethiopian health minister who took charge of the UN agency in July, had earlier this week given Mugabe the honorary role to help combat non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Africa.

But activists, public health experts and key WHO donors like Britain, Canada and the United States condemned the move, saying Zimbabwe’s healthcare system has collapsed under Mugabe’s 37-year authoritarian rule.

“Over the last few days, I have reflected on my appointment of H.E.

President Robert Mugabe as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for NCDs in Africa. As a result, I have decided to rescind the appointment,” Tedros said in a statement. “I have listened carefully to all who have expressed their concerns,” he added.

“I have also consulted with the government of Zimbabwe and we have concluded that this decision is in the best interests of the World Health Organisation.” Zimbabwe’s higher education minister and close Mugabe ally, Jonathan Moyo, said WHO risked “losing all respect and goodwill” in a tweet ahead of the decision.

In announcing the appointment, Tedros had praised Zimbabwe as “a country that places universal health coverage and health promotion at the centre of its policies to provide health care to all”.

That claim was widely blasted by critics, who noted that the 93-year-old and increasingly frail Mugabe travels abroad for his own medical needs, calling that a sign of the devastation he has wrought on Zimbabwe’s health system.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition MDC party had called the appointment “laughable” and “an insult”.

Despite withdrawing the Mugabe honour, Tedros insisted that he remained “committed to working with all countries and their leaders” in WHO’s pursuit of universal health coverage. While the WHO boss’s climbdown was met with immediate praise, the Mugabe storm raised questions about Tedros’s leadership of an agency still emerging from a crisis that led some to question its long-term viability.

“The right decision. Thank you Dr Tedros. Strong leadership,” the editor of The Lancet medical journal, Richard Horton, said on Twitter.

In an email shortly before the announcement of the reversal, the director of the Global Health Institute at Harvard University, Ashish K. Jha, said Tedros faces a massive task in restoring WHO’s credibility and that episodes like the Mugabe affair are not helpful.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2017