POLICY BRIEF article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1558268
This article is part of the Research TopicWHO African Region Reforms: Aligning Country Offices to Strengthen Health Systems to Meet Global Health ObjectivesView all 7 articles
Lessons learnt and policy implications of an organizational reform of the World Health Organization African Region Country Offices -A policy brief Authors
Provisionally accepted
Abdulmumini Usman*
Joseph Cabore
Olushayo Oluseun Olu
Ndoungou Salla BaPatrick Kabore
Joseph OkeibunorAlex GasasiraMatshidiso Moeti- World Health Organisation, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo
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A decade ago, the World Health Organization faced calls for significant reforms to shift its focus from donor-driven priorities to those determined by its Member States. • The WHO Regional Office for Africa was particularly challenged, and the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak further amplified the need for transformative changes.• In response, the World Health Organization Regional Director for Africa launched the Transformation Agenda in 2015, aiming to improve the organization's efficiency and responsiveness.• Within this reform agenda, a major restructuring of the 47 World Health Organization Country Offices known as the Functional Review was conducted between 2017 and 2019• This article reflects on the lessons from the Functional Review process such as the need for sufficient resources, stakeholder engagement, flexibility, and good communication during organizational reforms.
Keywords: Transformation Agenda, Functional Review, organizational reforms, World Health Organization African region, World Health Organization Country Offices, Africa, Africa
Received: 09 Jan 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Usman, Cabore, Olu, Ba, Kabore, Okeibunor, Gasasira and Moeti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Abdulmumini Usman, World Health Organisation, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo
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