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Home > About us > Director general office > The Director General elected in May 2015
The Director General elected in May 2015
Dr Monique Eloit was elected Director General of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) on 26 May 2015 by the World Assembly, which brings together the national Delegates of all OIE Member Countries. Currently Deputy Director General of the OIE, she will begin her five-year term of office on 1 January 2016, as the 7th Director General of the OIE.
Training
Monique Eloit entered the Alfort National Veterinary School (ENVA - France) in 1977. She graduated as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, having presented a thesis on infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, an early indication of her interest in livestock health management. Dr Eloit joined the State civil service in 1982 as a veterinary inspector.
Professional experience
From the very first years of her work, Dr Eloit had to deal with sensitive issues such as the transport and slaughter of livestock, at both the national level and at European Community level, and participated in the first European negotiations on these topics. In 1992, she was placed in charge of the launch of the programme for the oral vaccination of foxes against rabies, which in several years enabled the disease to be eradicated in France.
During the 1990s, she occupied successively the positions of Assistant to the Deputy Director for animal health and protection, in which capacity she participated in setting up the national agency for veterinary products (ANMV), and Deputy Head of the Department for food quality and veterinary and plant health actions. For over six years she also acted as Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the European Convention for the protection of animals kept for farming purposes (T-AP), at the Council of Europe.
At the beginning of the new millennium, Dr Eloit was appointed Director at the French Food Safety Agency (Afssa). In this capacity she helped to reform the expert committees, supervised national veterinary laboratories with regard to their scientific and technical support activities, and represented Afssa on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Committee of national agencies. She was also in charge of the “bioterrorism” dossier, which involved making some of the Agency’s laboratories available for controls on suspicious products.
In 2005, she returned to the Ministry of Agriculture, holding three appointments simultaneously, as Deputy Director General for Food, Chief Veterinary officer (CVO) of France and Delegate to the OIE. During the four years that followed, she had to deal with many sanitary crises, including managing the avian influenza crisis, the foot and mouth disease and bluetongue epizootics and various food safety emergencies. Her duties as CVO and Delegate to the OIE involved working at a national level but also at a regional and international level.
After these years of experience, she joined the OIE in 2009, as Deputy Director General in charge of administration, management, human resources and regional actions. In addition to playing a leading role in institutional relations with Member Countries and with international organisations having an agreement with the OIE, she also supervises the activities of the OIE Regional and Sub-Regional Representations. During these past six years, she has also overseen the reform of the OIE’s accounting and financial procedures and made a significant contribution to the preparation of the OIE’s Sixth Strategic Plan for the period 2016-2020.
Dr Eloit was born in 1958 and is the mother of two children. Her husband is an eminent professor of virology at Alfort national Veterinary School and a researcher at the Pasteur Institute. Dr Eloit’s thirty years of solid professional experience have given her an invaluable knowledge of all aspects of animal health and welfare. She will take over as Director General of the OIE on 1 January 2016. In so doing she will become the 7th Director General of the OIE, and the first woman to hold the position.