In a statement, the W.H.O.’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he had “reflected” on the appointment.

“I have listened carefully to all who have expressed their concerns, and heard the different issues that they have raised,” he said. “I have also consulted with the government of Zimbabwe and we have concluded that this decision is in the best interests of the World Health Organization.”

On Wednesday, at a global conference in Uruguay on noncommunicable diseases, Dr. Tedros, an Ethiopian and the first African to lead the United Nations’ health agency, said he was “honored” to be joined by Mr. Mugabe, 93, and appoint him an ambassador.

Dr. Tedros said the leader could use the role “to influence his peers in his region” when it came to fighting noncommunicable diseases — such as heart attacks, strokes and asthma — in Africa.

He also praised Zimbabwe as “a country that places universal health coverage and health promotion at the center of its policies to provide health care to all.”

The reaction was swift and unforgiving.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada joined a chorus of world leaders, the State Department, medical professionals and social media users who expressed outrage or puzzlement at the appointment.

Appearing in Edmonton on Saturday, Mr. Trudeau told reporters that he thought the choice of Mr. Mugabe was “a bad April Fool’s joke,” according to the local news media.

Twenty-eight health organizations, including the NCD Alliance — which works with the W.H.O. and other global groups to battle noncommunicable diseases — released a statement expressing “shock” at the appointment.

Obert Gutu, a spokesman for Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change, said, “It is an insult.”

He added: “Mugabe trashed our health delivery system. He and his family go outside of the country for treatment in Singapore after he allowed our public hospitals to collapse.”

Under Mr. Mugabe’s authoritarian rule, critics say, the country’s health care system, like many of its public services, has suffered badly, with hospitals frequently lacking essential supplies and nurses and doctors regularly left without pay.

Mr. Mugabe and Zimbabwe have also been slapped with international sanctions over human rights abuses.

Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, a human rights group, had condemned the choice. He called on Dr. Tedros to reconsider, writing on Twitter: “@DrTedros I urge you to cancel your appointment of Mugabe as W.H.O. ‘good-will ambassador’ — he ruined Zimbabwe’s health.”

Neither the president nor his government has reacted publicly to the controversy.

In a tweet on Saturday, Dr. Tedros wrote: “I’m listening. I hear your concerns. Rethinking the approach in light of WHO values.”

A spokesman for the W.H.O., Christian Lindmeier, had said that the agency’s director general was seeking broad support for its work.

“Tedros has frequently talked of his determination to build a global movement to promote high-level political leadership for health,” he said.

In his statement on Sunday, Dr. Tedros said, “I remain firmly committed to working with all countries and their leaders to ensure that every one has access to the health care they need.”

A look at the ongoing dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and its impact on the world's longest river.

Water ministers from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have gathered last week to discuss how Africa's largest hydroelectric dam will affect water distribution and access to the Nile.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is 60 percent complete and has yet to go into operation. The $4.8bn megaproject near the Sudanese border was launched in April 2011.

Water rights and the utilisation of water from the Nile for power generation still remain highly contentious issues. And there are concerns about GERD's impact on the river and downstream nations.

Nearly a quarter of a billion people rely on the Nile's waters.

Its basin covers eleven countries: Tanzania and Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.

Egypt and Sudan claim exclusive rights to its use and object to anything that might affect the river. This is based on colonial-era treaties of 1929 and 1959 that gave Egypt and Sudan the lion's share of the Nile's water. Egypt was also given veto power over dams in upstream countries.

Most of Egypt's Nile water originates in Ethiopia from the Blue Nile, and the nation hopes for the Renaissance dam to help boost its economy. In a major breakthrough, the three countries signed a cooperation deal on the project in 2015. But Egypt still fears that the dam will cut into its water supply.

"The building of a great dam is bound to have impacts, both locally and throughout the river system, it's all one joined-up system. However, the way that it's done, the way that it's built, the way that it's filled, and the way that it's managed can massively reduce those impacts," Colin Thorne, professor and chair of Physical Geography at the UK-based Nottingham University, tells Al Jazeera.

He believes that "if the addition of another dam to a river is done in a coordinated fashion, with the existing dams and water resource developments, then actually the addition of a dam can be beneficial. So it's all in the way that you do it and in the way that you operate the dam afterwards."

Asked about Egypt's concerns regarding the dam and its impact, Thorne says, "I think any country in Egypt's position would have concerns about developments of a major water resource upstream.... they don't have control over what happens upstream of them, so they are justified to be nervous, but they must enter into full dialogue with Sudan, with Ethiopia, indeed with the other countries in the Nile basin. That's the only way that the Nile can be managed in a coordinated fashion to the benefit of all the nations."

According to him, there's always a possibility of a regional resource conflict, but "the Nil is a fantastic water resource. It's been exploited for not just centuries but millennia, and that's going to go on in the future at a time of increased water stress, because of climate change. And if the nations and the engineers and the technical experts work together, then fears, although understandable, will be unnecessary."

Source - Aljazeera