Women in Global Health at the 75th World Health Assembly
19 May 2022
The 75th World Health Assembly is a momentous occasion for Women in Global Health, as we are sending our first ever delegation since achieving Official Relations status with the World Health Organization (WHO) earlier this year. The overarching theme of WGH’s WHA advocacy is women’s political representation and participation in global health.
We’ll also be hosting two events on the sidelines of the WHA:
- May 24: Safe and Decent Working Conditions for Women in Times of Crisis
- May 25: Policy Priorities for Gender-Responsive UHC
Visit our events section to register for those events.
Our delegation will be working throughout the Assembly to advocate policy change and push the agenda towards these key areas:
- Health Workforce
- Universal Health Coverage
- Pandemic Gender Responsiveness (all related Pandemic Treaty initiatives)
- Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment in Health
- Gender Equity in Leadership
During the week of the assembly we’ll be sending daily updates to our supporters on the five above agenda items that we’re tracking throughout the event. We invite you to join our movement if you haven’t already in advocating for women worldwide on these issues! Please download pre-generated social media messaging via our campaign toolkits to help amplify our key demands during WHA75.
Our Upcoming Gender Parity Country
Women in Global Health has monitored the number of women-headed WHO member state delegations since 2010 and will be publishing these results during WHA75. Our findings in past years, reveal that progress remains unremarkable and unacceptably slow.
In a continued bid to push for gender parity in WHA leadership, our annual count last year revealed the number of women-headed WHO member state delegations had climbed from a paltry 23% to just 26%. We’ll be publishing results of this year’s figures to demand better outcomes for women in global health leadership, in recognition of the following facts:
- Women are form around 70% of the health workers but only 25% of senior roles. Around 70% of global health organizations are headed by men, and 80% of board chairs are men.
- Women’s underrepresentation in health leadership means systems lose critical perspectives, knowledge and expertise, limiting the ability of health systems to keep communities healthy.
- If current trends persist, gender parity will not be reached among global health CEOs for 40 years.
About Women in Global Health
Women in Global Health started in 2015 when four early career women who initially met online encountered an overwhelming response on social media on a range of issues. Five years after launching as a not-for-profit that was entirely powered by volunteers and had no income, Women in Global Health now has 41 Chapters in 36 countries, and expects to have 100 by 2023. With around 5,500 members and 70,000 supporters, we are nurses, midwives, doctors, public health professionals, health policy makers, community health workers, researchers, pharmacists and private sector health workers.
The clear need for the organization is demonstrated by the spontaneous formation of many of our Chapters, our accelerating growth through the pandemic and the high representation of members in lower- and middle-income countries.
Our goal is to remedy the inequities of leadership, pay and working conditions as well as the impacts of policy and programme decisions on gender. This local to global movement is not just for the benefit of the health workforce but serves as one of the most far-reaching and cost-effective interventions that can be made in improving health care generally.
