POLICY AND PRACTICE REVIEWS article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1562732
This article is part of the Research TopicWHO African Region Reforms: Aligning Country Offices to Strengthen Health Systems to Meet Global Health ObjectivesView all 6 articles
Public health workforce management during major organizational reform in the World Health Organisation African Rregion Ccountry Ooffices
Provisionally accepted
Egide Rwamatwara*
Abdulmumini Usman
Ndoungou Salla Ba
Patrick KaboreHyelni Kulausa
Olushayo Oluseun OluAlex GasasiraJoseph CaboreMatshidiso Moeti- World Health Organization - Regional Office for Africa, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo
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Following her appointment as Regional Director of the World Health Organization African Region in February 2015, Dr Matshidiso Moeti launched the Transformation Agenda to reform and align the organization's work with regional public health needs. This initiative was prompted by the weaknesses observed during the 2013-2014 Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa, particularly delayed response and limited availability of skilled personnel for rapid detection and management. A key component of the agenda was the functional review of the 47 World Health Organization country offices in the region, aimed at optimizing structures and staffing to be fit-for-purpose. Conducted between 2017 and 2023, the functional review sought to tailor the country office capacities to the specific health priorities of all 47 Member States and introduce more effective operational models. This paper examines the management of human resources throughout the functional review process, with a focus on workforce challenges, including anxiety, stress, and uncertainty and the strategies adopted by organization to mitigate their impact. It also reviews the steps taken to strengthen country offices human resource capacities in line with the functional review objectives and draws attention to the challenges, good practices, and lessons learned in managing organizational change during institutional reform.
Keywords: Transformation agenda, Functional review, People management, Managing Workforce, Country Office, WHO African Region Transformation Agenda, WHO African Region
Received: 18 Jan 2025; Accepted: 11 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rwamatwara, Usman, Ba, Kabore, Kulausa, Olu, Gasasira, Cabore 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: Egide Rwamatwara, World Health Organization - Regional Office for Africa, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo
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