Liberia's Johnson Sirleaf among veteran female leaders to head WHO Covid-19 review

Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf speaks during a Reuters interview in Kigali. File picture: Jean Bizimana/Reuters

Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf speaks during a Reuters interview in Kigali. File picture: Jean Bizimana/Reuters

Published Jul 9, 2020

Share

Zurich - Avowed multilateralists Ellen

Johnson Sirleaf and Helen Clark will lead a World Health

Organization (WHO) panel scrutinising the global response to the

Covid-19 pandemic just as international institutions are under

fire.

The work by Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia's former president and

Clark, New Zealand's ex-prime minister, will come into the harsh

spotlight trained on the WHO by US President Donald Trump, who

has accused the agency of being in China's pocket while letting

the pandemic spiral out of control.

Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Africa's

first democratically elected female president, and Clark, who

sought the top United Nations job in 2016, acknowledged that the

study of how the world tackled this crisis, to prepare for the

next one, will not be easy.

"Our world is challenged by what is happening, challenged in

ways that none of us could have forecast," Clark, 70, said on

Thursday.

Johnson Sirleaf, 81, a Liberian-born, US-educated

economist, served 12 years as her West African country's leader,

a period that included the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak that killed

thousands.

She won the Nobel Prize in 2011 for promoting the peaceful

struggle for women's rights as she oversaw Liberia's emergence

from civil war. She has deep WHO ties, having been named a

goodwill ambassador last year.

In a March BBC editorial, Johnson Sirleaf called for

solidarity against Covid-19 while criticising early lapses by

states.

"Time was wasted. Information was hidden, minimised, and

manipulated. Trust was broken," she wrote.

Clark, New Zealand's leader from 1999 to 2008, lost out four

years ago to Antonio Guterres to lead the UN. She previously led

the UN Development Programme and serves on a WHO panel on

childhood obesity.

In May, in an online forum, she criticised global leadership

for failing to muster the "unity of purpose" that overcame

challenges like eradicating smallpox.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called them

"strong-minded, independent leaders", aiming to underscore their

freedom in assessing his agency's and governments' Covid-19

responses. 

Reuters

Related Topics:

coronavirus