WHO Names Vanessa Kerry to Strengthen Health Systems for Future Crises

Dr Kerry will work with governments, development partners, multilateral organisations, civil society groups and private-sector representatives to encourage greater investment in integrated health systems.

The World Health Organization has appointed Dr Vanessa Kerry as the WHO Director-General's Special Envoy for Health Resilience, giving her a wider mandate to support health systems facing climate pressures, disease outbreaks, funding challenges and other complex global threats. Her new role builds on her work as WHO's first Director-General Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health, where she helped bring greater international attention to the growing connection between environmental change and human health.

Health resilience is not limited to emergency plans that become active during a pandemic or natural disaster. It depends on whether countries have enough trained health workers, reliable facilities, sustainable financing, essential medical supplies and coordinated services to meet people's daily needs while remaining strong enough to respond when a major shock arrives.

Financing and national leadership will guide the agenda

Dr Kerry will work with governments, development partners, multilateral organisations, civil society groups and private-sector representatives to encourage greater investment in integrated health systems. Her responsibilities will include promoting sustainable financing for universal health coverage, supporting domestic resource mobilisation, helping attract additional resources and advising WHO leaders on policies that strengthen countries' ability to manage present and future health risks.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the appointment as a natural development of Dr Kerry's work with the organisation. He credited her leadership with helping the global health community recognise climate change as a major health issue and said her new position would support countries in securing the financing, partnerships and coordinated approaches needed to withstand increasing pressures.

A central part of the role will involve encouraging global health organisations and donors to align their resources with priorities set by countries themselves. This approach seeks to reduce fragmented programmes that may address individual diseases or emergencies separately, replacing them with stronger national systems capable of delivering connected and dependable care across different health needs.

Climate-ready systems require workers, infrastructure and time

Climate resilience will remain a major focus of Dr Kerry's work, reflecting the growing strain that extreme heat, floods, storms, changing disease patterns and other environmental pressures place on health services. The agenda will support investment in health workers, infrastructure and country-led financing models that can keep essential care available during both prolonged pressures and sudden emergencies.

Dr Kerry said resilience should be understood as the foundation that allows a health system to function every day and remain dependable when pressure rises. She stressed that this foundation cannot be created one crisis at a time, since countries need years of steady investment in their workforce, infrastructure and financing arrangements to build services they can own and sustain.

Her appointment reflects WHO's wider commitment to helping countries improve health outcomes, expand universal health coverage and prepare for an increasingly complicated risk landscape. Stronger systems could allow governments to respond more effectively to pandemics and climate-related emergencies while protecting routine services such as maternal care, vaccination, disease treatment and community health programmes.