The WHO internship programme is one of the most high-profile junior professional training programme in global health, and previous findings have suggested the programme is inaccessible to young professionals from developing countries. However, the extent of this is unknown.

In May 2016, WHO published, for the first time, full statistics concerning Member State participation on the internship programme – they show that only 15% of interns at WHO headquarters were from developing countries; Africa and South-East Asia regional offices offer less than 4% of all WHO internships; and almost 60% of WHO Member States had no nationals participating in the entire programme throughout 2015.

The internship programme suffers from inequitable Member State participation, and therefore fails to build future global health capacity in young professionals from developing countries.

Reform of the internship programme should focus on overhauling the entire recruitment procedures; providing financial support to interns, particularly from low-income countries; and introducing a semi-structured curriculum to maximise the benefits of the internship.