10 The Constitution provides that the World Health Assembly shall define the geographical areas in which it is desirable to establish a regional organization and that the Health Assembly may, with the consent of the majority of the Members within each area so defined, establish a regional organization to meet the needs of that area.
20 The First World Health Assembly defined six geographical areas - Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific - and authorized the Executive Board to set up a regional organization for each of them.
30 The regional organization in each of these six regions consists of a regional committee and a regional office. Membership of the regional organizations is mainly, but not necessarily, geographically determined.
40 The regional offices are the:
- WHO Regional Office for Africa - AFRO
- WHO Regional Office for the Americas (also: Pan-American Sanitary Bureau – see paragraph 80 below) - AMRO
- WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia - SEARO
- WHO Regional Office for Europe - EURO
- WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean - EMRO
- WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific - WPRO
50 The functions of the regional committees and the regional offices are described in the WHO Constitution.
60 The technical and administrative head of each regional office is a regional director. Regional directors are appointed by the Executive Board after nomination by the regional committee. The regional committees are composed of representatives of Member States, Associate Members and other territories if applicable, in the region concerned. They normally meet once a year, generally in the early autumn.
70 The staff of regional offices are appointed by agreement between the Director-General and the relevant regional director.
80 Region for the Americas: In accordance with the terms of the agreement of 1949 between the WHO and the Pan American Health Organization, the Pan-American Sanitary Conference (or the Directing Council of the Pan-American Health Organization, depending on which of these bodies is meeting) will serve as the Regional Committee of WHO for the Americas, while the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau will serve as the Regional Office of WHO for the Western Hemisphere.
