President Macron, WHO Director-General and global health leaders open the WHO Academy in Lyon

The World Health Organization (WHO) Academy in Lyon, France officially opened its doors yesterday with a high-profile inauguration ceremony. The event was attended by the Director General of WHO, dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, French President H.E. Emmanuel Macron, along with dozens of health ministers, international representatives, donors and local French partners.

The WHO Academy is a revolutionary project that will contribute to better education of the health workforce worldwide, through the most ambitious lifelong learning program ever designed in the field of public health. More specifically, through trainings held in Lyon and everywhere in the world on its online platform, health professionals, political producers and the WHO's own workforce will.

Thanks to partnerships built with the best public health academic and research institutes around the world, the WHO Academy aims to address perceived weaknesses in health systems – the first of which is the growing global shortage of health and care workers, which is predicted to reach 10 million by 2030, but also a growing gap in terms of access to the latest research and innovation. Most of this shortfall will be felt in low- and middle-income countries, especially in Africa. With the goal of building and sharing access to the most advanced health and care technology and health research and development, including artificial intelligence, the Academy will bring additional capacity and efficiency directly to health systems.

Launched seven years ago, this pioneering initiative is made possible by the generous support of the Government of France, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, the city of Lyon and Métropole, and other global partners. The new state-of-the-art WHO Academy campus covers 11,000 square meters and includes: twenty-two training rooms, two distance learning rooms, a simulation center, an emergency operations center, a TV recording studio, a modern auditorium and a library.

The academy also has an online learning platform that democratizes access to world-class healthcare education. This platform offers free, premium courses on priority health topics, ensuring that professionals around the world can access high-quality training, regardless of their location.

President Emmanuel Macron said: “Today we can be proud to open the doors of a new global institution in the city of Lyon, which will bring the best of healthcare training and innovation to the world. The latest technological and AI developments will be very powerful to make healthcare more accessible everywhere, because I believe that better trained health workers are absolutely critical to preventing and responding to future pandemics, this strong partnership with WHO will demonstrate our confidence in its ability to guide our health policies around the world and to coordinate our actions, so that we are always more effective in serving ours people on the ground.”

dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, said: “WHO is known for producing world-class technical products – guidelines, norms and standards – but their translation into action in the real world is hampered by a lack of institutionalized training. Our technical products often sit unused on shelves or unread in mailboxes. The WHO Academy will be a revolutionary, first-of-its-kind, global health learning center that will equip health and care workers, policy makers and our global workforce with the competencies and skills they need to transform health systems and deliver health for all. “

The shortage of health workers is one of the biggest challenges to global health. It has left millions without access to basic health services, such as vaccinations, maternal care, treatment of infectious diseases, etc.

Through the WHO Academy, thousands of health workers will be trained every year. By 2028, the Academy aims to train 3 million health workers, including nurses, clinicians and midwives, along with 900 senior decision-makers and 13,000 public health managers. The WHO Academy will produce 50 to 80 courses per year from 2025 to 2028, totaling approximately 260 new courses by 2028.

The WHO Academy represents a bold step forward in closing the global health workforce gap. By providing high-quality, accessible education and training to health professionals worldwide, the Academy will play a key role in strengthening health systems, improving service delivery and advancing health equity.