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In episode four of our series interviewing candidates for director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), we talk to Gevorg Tamamyan. This series is in partnership with the Global Health Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Tamamyan is professor of paediatric oncology at Yerevan state medical university and he has spent his career treating children with cancer. In his native Armenia, he has seen survival rates rise, by raising the funds to ensure his patients have the same access to medicines as those in wealthier countries like Switzerland. If he succeeds in becoming WHO director-general, he wants to tackle health inequity across the board. “People are dying not because of lack of knowledge or science, but because of lack of equity and a lack of access,” he tells us. He sees the Covid-19 pandemic as a prime example of what’s wrong. “In 2021, out of 8 billion vaccine doses, only 3% went to Africa, while other countries were already rolling out booster doses.” He knows the WHO faces big challenges, but believes positive reform can guarantee its future. “I'm convinced that the world is much better with the WHO than without it.”

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

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Inside Geneva has partnered with the Global Health Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute to bring you exclusive interviews with the candidates for director general of the World Health Organization (WHO). Who wants to lead our top public health body? 

Maria Neira was a doctor for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as the genocide in Rwanda began. Now she is a WHO insider, serving as its Director of Public Health, Environment and Social Determinants. And she knows public health from the government side; she was vice-minister of health in her native Spain from 2002 until 2005. She’s a passionate advocate for the WHO, telling us “it is one of the most powerful and beautiful ideas ever created by humanity.” She remembers that when she was a medical student, WHO advice was seen as a gold standard. 

Today, amid funding cuts and widespread disinformation, she says “we need to be very strategic, to rebuild credibility and trust.” But she’s convinced she can inspire member states to rededicate themselves to the WHO, “through healthcare we can change the world. Imagine if we put in place prevention strategies: people will be healthy, their economies will be better.“

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

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Here is episode two of our series in partnership with the Global Health Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute, bringing you exclusive interviews with the candidates for director general of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Budi Sadikin is currently Indonesia’s health minister, but has spent most of his career in finance, as a top executive at Indonesia’s biggest bank. “Before, my job was to make my clients wealthy; now my job is to make my people healthy,” he says with a smile. Sadikin believes his experience in finance will help him tackle WHO reform, even as the organisation suffers big cuts in donor funding.

But he is also a firm believer in health equity, telling us that during a global pandemic, emergency treatments “should become global public goods.” He says his good relations with the United States will help him encourage Washington to rejoin the WHO, but also warns that “if any country believes it can safeguard its population on its own during the next pandemic, that is scientifically and practically impossible.”

Listen to the full interview and subscribe to our Inside Geneva podcast.

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
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Inside Geneva has partnered with the Global Health Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute to bring you exclusive interviews with the candidates for director general of the World Health Organization (WHO). Who wants to lead our top public health body?

Hanan Balkhy is currently regional director for the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean regional office, so she’s something of a WHO insider. A native of Saudi Arabia, she was educated in the United States and always wanted to be a doctor. Doing the WHO’s top job, she says, is a way “to serve the broader humanity.”

She is especially concerned about antibiotic resistance, about the effects of climate change on health, and healthcare in conflict zones. She also warns about a “normalisation” of attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers. But she is also well aware that the WHO needs to reform and do more with less money. “The bottom line is that the funding is slimmer.”

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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This week on Inside Geneva, host Imogen Foulkes asks whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) can survive Washington’s brutal sanctions.

James Goldston of Open Society tells us the sanctions mean a “financial death sentence” for the court’s judges and lawyers, who can no longer use credit cards and even US based systems like Microsoft. 

Philippe Bolopion of Human Rights Watch says the court is a last resort for the victims of terrible atrocities, such as war crimes and genocide. But Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies describes the ICC as a “kangaroo court”, which he believes is intent on prosecuting US and Israeli citizens.

Tune in for a lively debate.

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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This week on our Inside Geneva podcast, we ask whether the world has forgotten women in Afghanistan. 

Under Taliban rule, they cannot work, go to secondary school, leave the house alone or even visit a public park. 

Human rights defenders say the world is looking away. Some argue that what’s happening in Afghanistan amounts to gender apartheid and want it recognised as a crime under international law.

They also warn that if the repression of women in Afghanistan is not challenged, it could happen in other countries too.

Listen now to the full episode. 

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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What takes a woman from a law career in Australia to Somalia, Afghanistan and then…Fiji? 

On our Inside Geneva podcast, host Imogen Foulkes talks to UN Women’s Alison Davidian about being in Kabul when the Taliban returned and about the effects of climate change and rising sea levels on women’s livelihoods. They also discuss why men and boys should never feel threatened by gender equality.

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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Distribution: Sara Pasino
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Diversity, equality, inclusion, woke: are these concepts now toxic?

The past two years have seen a pushback against gender equality, and it is having real-world consequences for women and girls. 

Yet in Geneva, the International Gender Champions, led by senior diplomats, are not giving up. 

“I embrace wokeness,” one ambassador tells us. The data shows that equality benefits everyone, socially, economically and politically. So why is it so out of fashion?

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It’s been ten months since the ceasefire in Gaza. Almost a million people still live in tents. There are 60 million tonnes of rubble to clear.

The UN estimates reconstruction will cost at least $70 billion. But the work has not started. Key building materials are being denied entry, there is little clean water, but many rats. 

Inside Geneva talks to Jehan Salim and Mohammed al Aklouk, aid workers from the Norwegian Refugee Council, about the huge task and the very limited resources.

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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UN investigations have documented war crimes in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. So why is no one being held accountable?

Why do some political leaders talk about human rights as though they were an optional nuisance? 

In this episode of our ‘Inside Geneva’ podcast, we speak with Phil Lynch and Pooja Patel from the International Service for Human Rights. We discuss impunity, scapegoating, funding cuts, standing up for our rights and much more.

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
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Philippe Stoll, the Red Cross’s ‘techplomat’, is Inside Geneva’s Summer Profile this week.

“I studied economics and I think I could have been a banker or something like that. A good Swiss indeed! But my mother was a volunteer at the Red Cross, and I think she influenced me a lot about maybe being human or taking care of humans,” he says. 

He’s helping the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) develop a new digital emblem to warn cyber warriors against attacking protected structures like hospital software, or confidential data.

“Cyber attacks are increasingly carried out by machines. It’s a machine talking to another machine, and this certificate is a way to identify something that the machine will understand and not attack.”

Such attacks are already happening.

“The ICRC suffered from a cyber attack in 2022. It’s not a question of if, it’s more question of when. We know that the ICRC has access to information that is highly interesting for state or non state armed groups,” says Stoll.

And they can cause enormous harm,

“[such as] the distress of people not being able to get the information online because it was hacked or the fact that some information might put your family or you at risk because you belong to a tribe or clan that is under attack.”

Join host Imogen Foulkes for an in-depth discussion – how do we uphold the Geneva Conventions in 21st-century wars?

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Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang