Koller Theadora

Theadora Swift Koller is Senior Technical Advisor (Equity) at the World Health Organization, Geneva. She leads the production of guidance and supports Member States (working through WHO Regional and Country Offices) on assessing barriers to health services and reorienting health planning and programming to be more equity-oriented in the context of reforms towards Universal Health Coverage. Theadora is also active on inequalities work at cross-UN levels: she represents WHO in the UN Inequalities Task Team (ITT) and co-leads a subgroup of the ITT on tackling rural poverty, as 4 out of 5 of the world’s extreme poor live in rural areas. She also oversees training activities for UNCTs of the UN Network on Racial Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. Before her time with WHO Headquarters, Theadora worked on health systems strengthening at the WHO India Country Office, where she anchored work on health equity and served as “acting coordinator” for the noncommunicable diseases team (supporting India to become the first country globally to adopt the WHO NCDs monitoring framework). Prior to that, she worked for the WHO European Office for Investment for Health and Development, coordinating activities on social exclusion and health (with a particular focus on migrant and Roma health); on tackling health inequities experienced by adolescents; and on country case studies, national equity profiles and barriers assessments done as followup to resolution EUR/RC52/R7 on poverty and health. Prior to joining WHO in 2002 and largely in parallel to her academic training, Theadora worked with the Stanford University’s Centre for Latin American Studies, the Cable News Network (CNN), and the Earth Council/Consejo de la Tierra in Costa Rica. She also had a research fellowship at the Chilean Corporacion Nacional Forestal and worked with the Mapuche peoples.