The World Health Organization (WHO) is pleased to announce Mr Martin Taylor as the new WHO Representative to China. Mr Taylor brings to this vital role over two decades of experience in global health and development, and an understanding of China drawing on 8 years of previously living and working in the country.
“In the coming years, cooperation between WHO and China will have a vital influence on the health and well-being of 1.4 billion Chinese people and beyond. Bringing deep public health expertise and experience in China, Martin Taylor’s appointment as the new WHO Representative will help to strengthen and expand our collaborative partnership,” says Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO’s Acting Regional Director for the Western Pacific.
“China is a very important player in global health and for the achievement of SDG3 – the global sustainable development goal to ensure health and well-being for all by 2030. As agreed in the WHO-China Country Cooperation Strategy 2022-2026, WHO will continue to work closely with the Government and partners to support implementation of the Healthy China 2030 agenda and the achievement of universal health coverage to benefit the population of China; meanwhile, we’ll continue to work together with China to promote health for all globally,” says Mr Taylor.
“I’m looking forward to supporting implementation of Healthy China 2030. In particular to help address the risk factors for noncommunicable disease (including smoking, harmful alcohol consumption, unhealthy diet and insufficient physical activity), and also to continue our collaboration on important infectious diseases like TB, hepatitis and HIV/AIDS. In addition, I am keen to support stronger health care delivery and public health and emergency systems”, added Mr Taylor.
The focus of Mr Taylor’s career to date has been on working closely with governments to strengthen health systems. Before taking up the role of WHO Representative to China, he was the Director of Health Systems and Services for WHO in the Western Pacific Region, based in Manila, Philippines. In that capacity, he led the Organization’s work in the Region on health financing, health legislation, workforce development, primary health care, healthcare delivery, rehabilitation, essential medicines, vaccines and other technologies, traditional medicine, maternal and child health, and quality of health care including infection prevention and control.
Mr Taylor has also advised the Australian development cooperation programme in Papua New Guinea on public health and health care issues, and earlier in his career he worked on health care reform in Central Asia and Eastern Europe for the UK Department for International Development. He was part of the team that established the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in 2002.
Mr Taylor's first time working in China was for the UK Department for International Development, when he led the United Kingdom’s cooperation with China on public health from 2003 to 2007. He returned to China from 2013 to 2017, when he led the WHO China team working on health systems and health security.
Educated at the University of Cambridge and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Mr Taylor's academic background is in social anthropology, health policy, planning and financing.
Mr Taylor practices what he advocates. He enjoys running along Beijing’s Liangma River and in Chaoyang Park and commutes by bicycle to the WHO office.