Dr Rudi Coninx is heading the Humanitarian Policy & Guidance unit in the Emergency Operations Department at the WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE).  He leads the unit that provides policy guidance and support for operations in disasters and emergencies, provides technical expertise and guidance, coordinates with interagency bodies such as the IASC (Inter-Agency Standing Committee) and translates policy into practice. He is also in charge of the WHO initiative to stop Attacks on Health Care Workers.

A medical doctor from Belgium, Dr Coninx graduated from the University of Leuven (Belgium) in 1982. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore and a Diploma in Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp.

Dr Coninx has worked extensively in humanitarian emergencies since 1983, with Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) on missions in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Thailand, with the United Nations Border Relief Operation (UNBRO) as health coordinator for Cambodian displaced persons at the Thai-Cambodian border, with WHO in Pakistan and Afghanistan during Operation Salam –leading WHO’s cross border operations into Afghanistan-  and with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the field as health coordinator in Sudan, Ethiopia, Mexico (Chiapas), Mozambique, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, as well as with the ICRC in Geneva as technical advisor for public health programs, as H.E.L.P. course coordinator, as focal point for ICRC tuberculosis control programs in prisons and as health focal point for ICRC health programs in Africa.

He joined WHO in Geneva in 2008 and has been working in the department responsible for humanitarian emergencies since then.