David Nabarro

Early life and education

Dr Nabarro is the son of the late Sir John David Nunes Nabarro - formerly consultant endocrinologist at University College Hospital (UCH) and Middlesex Hospital, London.

He attended Oundle School, leaving in the summer of 1966. In a gap year between school and university, Dr Nabarro was a community service volunteer. He spent a year as the organiser of Youth Action, York. A BBC television documentary was made about his volunteer work.

Dr Nabarro studied at University of Oxford and University of London, and qualified as a physician in 1973. He is a member of the Faculty of Public Health (FPH) and the Royal College of Physicians by distinction (where he is also a Fellow).

Early career

Dr Nabarro worked as a Medical Officer in North Iraq for Save the Children, before joining the United Kingdom's (UK) National Health Service (NHS) for a short time. From 1976 to 1978, Dr Nabarro worked as District Child Health Officer in Dhankuta District, Nepal. Later, he moved to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and in 1982, he became Regional Manager for the Save the Children Fund in South Asia, based in the region. In 1985 he joined the University of Liverpool Medical School as Senior Lecturer in International Community Health.

He moved to the Overseas Development Administration (now the Department for International Development) as a Strategic Adviser for Health and Population in East Africa, based in Nairobi, in 1989.

Dr Nabarro later took up the post of Chief Health and Population Adviser at the Overseas Development Administration (London office) in 1990, and moved on to become Director of Human Development (as well as Chief Health Adviser) in 1997.

World Health Organization, 1999–2005

Dr Nabarro joined the WHO in January 1999, as Project Manager of Roll Back Malaria, then moved to the Office of the DG as Executive Director in March 2000. In this capacity, he worked with DG Gro Harlem Brundtland for two years on a variety of issues, including the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, Health Systems Assessments and the creation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Dr Nabarro transferred to the Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments cluster in 2003 and was appointed Representative of the DG for Health Action in Crises in July 2003.

Dr Nabarro was stationed in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, when it was bombed on the afternoon of 19 August 2003. The blast targeted the UN, which had used the hotel as its headquarters in Iraq since 1991.

He has also coordinated support for health aspects of crisis response operations in Darfur, Sudan, and in countries affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and Tsunami.

UN System Senior Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza (Assistant Secretary-General), September 2005–2014

In September 2005, Dr Nabarro was seconded from WHO and appointed Senior UN System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza by Secretary-General of the UN Kofi Annan to ensure that the UN system makes an effective and coordinated contribution to the global effort to control the epidemic of avian influenza (also known as 'bird flu').

Coordinator of the High-Level Task Force on Global Food Security (HLTF), April 2008–April 2014

In January 2009, Dr Nabarro took on the responsibility of coordinating the UN system’s High-Level Task Force on Global Food Security (HLTF). The HLTF brought together 23 different organizations, funds, programs and other entities from within the UN family, as well as the Bretton Woods Institutions, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and tasked them with establishing a common strategy for addressing food and nutrition insecurity in a more sustainable, coordinated and comprehensive way. Dr Nabarro left the HLTF coordinator position in 2014 and was succeeded by Giuseppe Fantozzi.

Coordinator of the Movement to Scale up Nutrition, September 2010-September 2015

In September 2010, Dr Nabarro was appointed Coordinator of Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN). SUN brings together government officials, civil society, the UN, donors, businesses and researchers in a collective effort to improve nutrition.

Chair of the Advisory Group on Reform of the World Health Organization’s Work in Outbreaks and Emergencies with Health and Humanitarian Consequences., July 2015-January 2016

Dr Nabarro was responsible for leading a high-level Advisory Group to guide reform of WHO’s response to outbreaks and emergencies, prepare reports based on the group’s recommendations and advise on the manner of their implementation.

Head of UN's Response to Cholera in Haiti, Summer 2016-Summer 2017

In 2016 Dr. Nabarro was tapped to lead the UN's response to Haiti's cholera epidemic. Cholera has killed more than 10,000 Haitians since the disease was introduced by UN peacekeepers in 2010. After UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon issued a long overdue apology for the UN's "role" in the epidemic, Nabarro oversaw efforts to raise $400 million from UN member states to fund the Secretary General's proposed "New Approach" to cholera in Haiti . Dr Nabarro was the second UN appointee to work on the cholera crisis in Haiti. Pedro Modrano Rojas previously served as a senior coordinator for the cholera effort, but left at the end of an 18-month term, stating that he was disappointed by the international community’s "failure to acknowledge the fact that we have in Haiti the largest epidemic in the western hemisphere." Nabarro's efforts were no more successful--as a result of a lack of support from the UN Secretary General and from member states, Nabarro was only been able to raise $2.7 million of the promised $400 million before being replaced by Josette Sheeran--though Sheeran will face the same obstacles as Nabarro.

Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Food Security and Nutrition, November 2009-Present

In November 2009 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Dr Nabarro as Special Representative on Food Security and Nutrition. As Special Representative, Dr Nabarro’s role is to:

Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Change, January 2016-Present

In January 2016, Dr Nabarro was appointed Special Adviser on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

One of Dr Nabarro’s responsibilities in this role is to lead the UN's response to the cholera epidemic its peacekeepers sparked in Haiti in October 2010 when untreated, infected sewage from a UN base was deposited in the country's main river system. As of August 2016, at least 10,000 people have died and more than 800,000 have been sickened in the ongoing epidemic.

Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General on Ebola, August 2014-December 2015

In August 2014, Dr Nabarro was designated as Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Ebola, with the responsibility for ensuring that the UN system makes an effective and coordinated contribution to the global effort to control the outbreak of Ebola. The epidemic is believed to have begun in December 2013 with the death of a 2-year-old boy in a remote area of Guinea, but was not recognized until March 2014. For several months the epidemic was spreading. This is something that public health experts in the affected locations, such as Medecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), claimed was due to a deeply flawed and delayed response by health and government officials.

In an interview later in 2015, once Ebola had largely been brought under control, Dr Nabarro said that when he started working on Ebola in 2014, he ‘was aware that we were in the middle of a disease outbreak of enormous proportions. The number of people getting sick was doubling every week. Facilities were completely overloaded. Communities were in a state of despair’. He added that the international community had learned important lessons from the epidemic: ‘The world is going to be different as a result of this Ebola outbreak, much more confident, much more assured, and much, much more capable to ensure the wellbeing of its citizens’.

Candidate for WHO Director-General September 2016-Present

An article co-authored by the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sally Davies, was published in The Lancet. It outlined the criteria that the next DG of the WHO must fulfill.

Dr Nabarro was one of six candidates put forward by their individual governments to succeed WHO DG Margaret Chan.

Dr Nabarro outlined his four priorities as follows:

1. Alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

2. Transforming the WHO to respond to outbreaks and health emergencies

3. Trusted engagement with Member States

4. Advancing people-centred health policies.

On Tuesday 23rd May, at the 70th World Health Assembly, Dr Nabarro came second in the race to become the next director general, receiving 50 votes to Dr Tedros' 133 in the third and final round of voting.

Additional positions

Recognition and awards

Personal life

Dr Nabarro has three older children with his former partner, Oxfordshire GP Susanna Belle Graham-Jones: Thomas (Tom) Adam Nabarro (1984), Oliver Mark Nabarro (1986) and Polly Frances Graham-Jones Nabarro (1988). David married Gillian Holmes in 2002, in Coppet, near Geneva, and they have two children: Josephine Mari Holmes Nabarro (1997) and Lucas John Nabarro (2000).