English
Gyanendra Ghale is a Nepali development activist and global health leader with over three decades of experience supporting countries and regions worldwide. His work is grounded in global health governance, including drafting key documents such as agendas for the World Health Assembly and Executive Board, and speaking notes for the Chair of the Executive Board and the President of the World Health Assembly. He has supported WHO Member States across a wide range of global health priorities and helped implement WHO collaborative work plans with governments in Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, and Nepal.
For the past three years, he has served in WHO’s Governing Bodies function at Headquarters in Geneva, working closely with Member States on agenda items, resolutions and decisions, briefings, and intersessional planning. He supported negotiations at the last three World Health Assemblies, including WHA76 and WHA77, with WHA78 marking a record number of resolutions and decisions under his portfolio. During 2024–2025, he also served as Secretary to the Member State Mechanism (MSM) Steering Committee, supporting the committee’s work and follow-up.
Previously, he led polio transition work in Southeast Asia—covering Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Indonesia—under the Global Polio Transition Programme at WHO Headquarters. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he coordinated the global launch and delivery of WHO Internal Boost, supporting more than 33 countries and delivering over 60 high-level products and services to help restore essential health services disrupted by the pandemic. Internal Boost was showcased as a success story at WHO’s 154th Executive Board meeting in 2023.
Earlier assignments include significant contributions in Indonesia to the WHO Country Cooperation Strategy and the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework. He also strengthened results-based management across WHO’s operations in the country. In India, he contributed to polio eradication efforts. In Myanmar, he helped plan and deliver the country’s first nationwide mass measles immunization campaign in 2007, immunizing over 7.5 million children.
Before joining WHO, he served with UNICEF as Country Coordinator for the Solomon Islands, supporting national immunization and child health programmes. As a civic activist in the mid-1990s, he led a prominent accountability campaign that raised concerns about the use of development aid. The campaign gained international media attention and contributed to changes in how international organizations operate locally.
In Nepal, he has delivered practical community health impact. He established a clinic in his native village of Gerkhu, Nuwakot, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier, in the mid-1990s, he ran a mother-and-child health clinic in Goljung (Upper Rasuwa), built the main health facility building in Kalikasthan (now operating as a community hospital), and constructed a facility building to run a government clinic in rural Kavre. He also helped organize international surgical camps across Nepal, including at Trishuli District Hospital, Nuwakot, providing free treatment to thousands of children with congenital conditions, including cleft lip and palate, while strengthening local clinical capacity.
He began his schooling in government schools in Gerkhu and Chokade—institutions established by his late great-grandfather—before completing high school and college in government institutions in Kathmandu. He later earned his master’s degree from Mahidol University in Thailand, one of Asia’s leading public health universities.
Inspired by Nepal’s recent Gen Z movement, the sacrifices of young martyrs, and the energy of emerging leaders who have demonstrated delivery and impact, he chose to leave his international role early and return to Nepal to support the country’s development for the rest of his active life.