Mugabe loses role in WHO following global outcry

THE World Health Organisation has reversed its decision to make Robert Mugabe a goodwill ambassador after an international outcry.

On Friday, officials announced that Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old dictator could encourage other African governments to reduce heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

This was despite the fact that he has overseen the collapse of his country’s economy, causing poverty and average life expectancy to fall by 17 years.

A coalition of 24 international health organisations said they were ‘shocked and deeply concerned’.

On Saturday, Health Minister Simon Harris described the appointment as ‘offensive and bizarre’, saying it would ‘distract from the WHO’s very important work’.

Yesterday, the WHO released a statement saying the appointment had been ‘rescinded’ and suggested even Zimbabwe thought it was a bad idea.

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is Ethiopian, said he had ‘reflected’ on the appointment over the weekend. On Friday, he had said he was ‘honoured’ to make Mugabe an ambassador. But yesterday he said: ‘I have listened carefully to all who have expressed concerns, and heard the different issues they have raised.

‘I have also consulted with the government of Zimbabwe and we have concluded that this decision is in the best interests of the World Health Organisation.

‘I thank everyone who has voiced their concerns and shared their thoughts. I depend on constructive debate to help and inform the work I have been elected to do.’

Despite his ill health, Mugabe has pledged to remain Zimbabwe’s president until his death.

One organisation said that he travels abroad for medical treatment, spurning hospitals in his homeland.

At the height of Zimbabwe’s crisis in 2009, the UN was feeding seven million Zimbabweans, more than twothirds of the population.

Mugabe’s regime has been blamed on Zimbabwe’s average life expectancy plummeting by 17 years over the course of two decades.

It fell from 61 years in 1985 to 44 in 2003 as a result of starvation and HIV.

They were shocked and concerned