Mohamed Abdi Jama
Assistant Director-General - General Management
Dr Jama was appointed Assistant Director - General for General Management in October 2009. Prior to that, Dr. Jama was the Deputy Regional Director and Director of Programme Management of the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, responsible for programme management and administration, a post he occupied from 2002.
Dr Jama first worked with WHO in 1988 when he was project officer for primary health care development, in Somalia and later in Djibouti. He joined WHO in 1991 serving as medical officer for primary health care development in Afghanistan. In 1998, Dr Jama was appointed WHO Representative for Afghanistan, and in 1999, served concurrently as Representative for Afghanistan and as Acting WHO Representative for Pakistan, until he was reassigned in late 2000 to the Regional Office as Regional Advisor for WHO Programme Development. In 2001 he become Assistant Regional Director and was also appointed WHO Regional Coordinator for the Afghan Crisis. In this capacity he was responsible for coordinating WHO’s response to the health emergency from within Afghanistan and from the neighbouring countries, involving other levels of the organization.
Dr Jama graduated in medicine from the Faculty of Medicine of the Somali National University in Mogadishu, Somalia, his home country. He obtained his postgraduate training in paediatrics from the same university and later pursued further training in public health in Italy and in the United States. He has served the Government of Somalia in various positions, including as programme manager for child health, lecturer in paediatrics at the Faculty of Medicine of the Somali National University, and Deputy Director and head of paediatrics department of Banadir Hospital, which served as a teaching hospital for the Faculty of Medicine.