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.