Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 20:52:35 -0500
From: Michel O'Neill <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Biography of New Head of Health Promotion at WHO
*** FYI. Sorry for crosspostings. ***
On February 25, 1999, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director General of
WHO, appointed Dr. Pamela Hartigan as WHO's Director of Health
Promotion. Dr. Hartigan, of Ecuadorian origin, is a graduate of
Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, has a Masters in
Economics from the Institut d'Etudes Européenes at the University of
Brussels, and Masters in Education from The American University in
Washington D.C., and a Ph.D. in Behavioral Psychology from The
Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Hartigan began her career as an economist at the World Bank,
worked extensively in education and curriculum development with a
focus on the needs of the immigrant Hispanic community in
Washington, D.C. In that capacity, she worked with Hispanic
community-based organizations, developing and carrying out
operational research to improve programs designed to respond to the
needs of adolescents and their newly arrived migrant parents.
She began her career with WHO in 1988 at the Pan American Health
Organization (PAHO), regional office of WHO in the Americas, in the
area of HIV/AIDS. In that capacity, she fostered close linkages
with NGOs working in HIV/AIDS prevention and control at the
community and national levels in PAHO's member countries of Latin
America and the Caribbean. In 1990 she was appointed by PAHO's
Director to spearhead an initiative to foster collaboration between
NGOs working in health in this region, and governmental
organizations. As a result, every PAHO unit now works closely with
local and national NGOs, ensuring that projects and programs are
jointly designed and implemented by governmental and
non-governmental
organizations. In 1994, Dr. Hartigan was requested by PAHO's
Director to take over the leadership of the Women, Health and
Development Program in the Organization. Dr. Hartigan and her team
developed a conceptual and practical framework to enable gender to
be mainstreamed throughout the Organization and in the countries,
mobilized over US$6 million to support community based initiatives
to address violence against women, and secured funds to conduct
research in the area of gender and quality of care.
In 1997, Dr. Hartigan was selected by the Special Programme for
Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) of the World Bank,
UNDP and WHO, as Programme Manager and Manager of the Task Force on
Gender-Sensitive Interventions. After 8 months in TDR, Dr. Hartigan
also became team leader of TDR's area of Applied Field Research.
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