Professor Walid Ammar

Professor Walid Ammar has been the Director of the “Doctorate and Research in Public Health” Program at St. Joseph University in Beirut since June 2020.

He served as Director General of the Ministry of Public Health of Lebanon (1993-2020). Under his leadership, reform efforts led to significant improvements in quality of care and health outcome indicators, while decreasing the GDP share of health expenditures, with a meaningful reduction in households’ out-of-pocket spending. He continues to serve as chief expert at the ministry, heading the National Infectious Disease Committee.

Professor Ammar was appointed in 2011, Commissioner in the United Nations “Commission on Information & Accountability for Women & Children’s Health”, and served as a member of the WHO Executive Board (EB) (2012-2015). Since 2015, he has been contributing to the WHO's ongoing reform in emergencies and outbreaks; first as a member of the WHO “Advisory Group on Reform of WHO’s Work in Outbreaks and Emergencies with Health and Humanitarian Consequences” and then as a member of the Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme (IOAC) from 2016 to the present. He served as Chair of the IOAC from May 2022 to May 2026. 

He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters in addition to two books: “Health System and Reform in Lebanon” (2003), “Health Beyond Politics” (2009).

Professor Ammar is an Honorary Member of the Delta Omega Society (2013) and the recipient of the WHO Shousha Foundation Prize (2016). He is Officer in both the French National Order of Merit and the Belgium’s National Order of the Crown. He was awarded in June 2020, the Golden Medal of the National Order of the Health Merit by the President of the Republic of Lebanon.