The World Health Organization is under fire after it selected Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as its goodwill ambassador.
The public health agency announced the decision this week, saying the African leader will focus on noncommunicable diseases such as heart attacks and strokes in the continent.
“Zimbabwe … places universal health coverage and health promotion at the center of its policies to provide health care to all,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, said while making the announcement.
Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian and WHO’s first African director-general, said Mugabe will use his role to ensure other leaders in the continent make noncommunicable diseases a priority.
The decision to name Mugabe stunned health experts and rights activists.
“The government of Robert Mugabe has brutalized human rights activists, crushed democracy dissidents, and turned the breadbasket of Africa — and its health system — into a basket-case,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, which monitors the performance of the world agency.
The WHO is a UN agency and focuses on international public health.
“The notion that the UN should now spin this country as a great supporter of health is, frankly, sickening.”
Mugabe, 93, is one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, and has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980 with little opposition.
Along with his inner circle, he has been under US sanctions since the early 2000’s for human right abuses and eroding democratic institutions. President Barack Obama extended sanctions for another year before he left office in January.
Naming the leader a “goodwill ambassador for anything” is an embarrassment for the WHO, tweeted Iain Levine, a deputy executive director at Human Rights Watch.
What’s a global ambassador?
Goodwill ambassadors for the WHO are public figures appointed to two-year terms by the director-general. They work closely with UN officials to raise awareness of global health issues. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was named a global ambassador for noncommunicable diseases last year.
Mugabe has long been criticized for corruption and abuse of power.
In 2009, his ruling political party spent over $250,000 on a lavish birthday party for the leader despite an ongoing food shortage and cholera outbreak.
Organizations protest
More than 25 global health organizations that attended the Uruguay conference where he was named global ambassador Wednesday signed a joint statement expressing shock and concern.
The organizations said even though Mugabe has made commitments to make noncommunicable diseases a priority in his country, he has a long track record of human rights violations.
It’s not the first time a UN appointment of the mostly ceremonial roles has raised eyebrows.
Last year, the UN stripped Wonder Woman of her role as a honorary ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls. When the scantily-clad comic book character was appointed as a figurehead for the feminist campaign, many UN workers protested.