In the position of Assistant Director-General of the Universal Health Coverage, Life Course Division, Dr Aylward drives the Organization’s agenda to make primary health care available to all without financial hardship, and oversees WHO’s work on health systems, immunization and reproductive, maternal and child health.
Prior to taking up this position, Dr Aylward led WHO’s Transformation Agenda and the Organization’s involvement in special initiatives such as the multi-agency Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) Hub and the G20 Joint Finance-Health Task Force.
Dr Aylward has 30 years of experience with WHO, working at all three levels of the organization and serving in a range of leadership positions including Director of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative Partnership, Assistant Director-General of the WHO Polio and Emergencies Cluster, Executive Director of the WHO Emergencies Programme, and Deputy Director-General for the West Africa Ebola Response. He also served as the Special Representative of the Director-General to the United Nations Emergency Ebola Response (UNMEER) from September 2014 to July 2016.
In 2016, Dr Aylward led the establishment of the new WHO Emergencies Programme, then managed the reform of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) before returning to WHO in late 2017 to lead the design and implementation of WHO’s ongoing Transformation Agenda.
Dr Aylward is a physician and epidemiologist with a Medical Doctorate from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, a diploma from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom, and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States of America