The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health. It was established on 7 April 1948, and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHO is a member of the United Nations Development Group. Its predecessor, the Health Organization, was an agency of the League of Nations.
The constitution of the WHO has been signed by 61 countries (all 51 member countries and 10 others) on 22 July 1946, with the first meeting of the World Health Assembly finishing on 24 July 1948. It incorporated the Office International d'Hygiène Publique and the League of Nations Health Organization.
Since its establishment, it has played a leading role in the eradication of smallpox. Its current priorities include communicable diseases, in particular Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis; the mitigation of the effects of non-communicable diseases such as reproductive health, development, and aging; nutrition, food security and healthy eating; occupational health; substance abuse; and driving the development of reporting, publications, and networking.
The WHO is responsible for the World Health Report, the worldwide World Health Survey, and World Health Day. The current Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom, also served as Ethiopian Health Minister from 2005 to 2012 and as Ethiopian Foreign Minister from 2012 to 2016. Adhanom started his five-year term on 1 July 2017
As of 2016, the WHO has 194 member states: all of the Member States of the United Nations except for the Cook Islands and Niue. (A state becomes a full member of WHO by ratifying the treaty known as the Constitution of the World Health Organization.) As of 2013, it also had two associate members, Puerto Rico and Tokelau. Several other countries have been granted observer status. Palestine is an observer as a "national liberation movement" recognized by the League of Arab States under United Nations Resolution 3118. The Holy See also attends as an observer, as does the Order of Malta. In 2010, Taiwan was invited under the name of "Republic of China".
WHO Member States appoint delegations to the World Health Assembly, WHO's supreme decision-making body. All UN Member States are eligible for WHO membership, and, according to the WHO website, "other countries may be admitted as members when their application has been approved by a simple majority vote of the World Health Assembly". Liechtenstein is currently the only UN member not in the WHO membership. The World Health Assembly is attended by delegations from all Member States, and determines the policies of the Organization.
The Executive Board is composed of members technically qualified in health, and gives effect to the decisions and policies of the Health Assembly. In addition, the UN observer organizations International Committee of the Red Cross and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have entered into "official relations" with WHO and are invited as observers. In the World Health Assembly they are seated alongside the other NGOs