Mercy Juma Broadcast Journalist BBC Africa

Mercy Juma is a multi-award-winning broadcast and print journalist with more than eight years of media experience, currently working as a Bilingual Correspondent at BBC News.  In 2017, she became the first recipient of the inaugural Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling by The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in partnership with ONE and the Elliott family. She was also one of the four 2015 United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists Fellows. As a speaker and moderator, Mercy has presented on various platforms including the International Journalism Festival and several major global health conferences. She holds a master’s degree in international relations from United States International University – Africa. One of her biggest commitments is towards creating a culture of equality, inclusion and diversity.

Githinji Gitahi Group CEO AMREF Africa, Co-Chair of UHC 2030

Dr Githinji Gitahi joined Amref Health Africa as the Group Chief Executive Officer in June 2015. Prior to his appointment, Dr Gitahi was the Vice President and Regional Director for Africa, Smile Train International. He has also served as the Managing Director for Monitor Publications in Uganda as well as the General Manager for Marketing and Circulation in East Africa for the Nation Media Group. He held progressively senior positions at GlaxoSmithKline and worked at the Avenue Group and in the insurance industry. Dr Gitahi is Co-Chair of the UHC2030 Steering Committee, and is a member of the Private Sector Advisory Board of Africa CDC, and the Global Health Investment Advisory Board. Dr Gitahi has a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Nairobi; a Master’s in Business Administration, majoring in Marketing, from United States International University and is also the recipient of the presidential commendation, the Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear.

Helen Clark Board Chair the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH); Former Prime Minister of New Zealand

Helen Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand for three successive terms from 1999 to 2008. She was the first woman to become Prime Minister following a General Election in New Zealand and the second woman to serve as Prime Minister. Throughout her tenure as Prime Minister and as a Member of Parliament over 27 years, Helen Clark engaged widely in policy development and advocacy across the international affairs, economic, social, environmental and cultural spheres. In April 2009, Helen Clark became Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. She was the first woman to lead the organization and served two terms there. At the same time, she was Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of all UN funds, programmes, agencies and departments working on development issues. As Administrator, she led UNDP to be ranked the most transparent global development organization. Prior to entering the New Zealand Parliament, Helen Clark taught in the Political Studies Department of the University of Auckland, from which she earlier graduated with her BA and MA (Hons) degrees.

Helen Clark’s photo credited to: Kieran Scott

Gro Harlem Brundtland Co-Chair Global Preparedness Monitoring Board

Global Pandemic Monitoring Board co-Chair, Former Prime Minister of Norway, Former Director- General of the World Health Organization

Dr. Brundtland, a medical doctor, was Norway’s first woman Prime Minister, serving a total of ten years as head of government between 1981 and 1996. She was Director-General of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003, UN Special Envoy for Climate Change from 2007 to 2010 and, from 2011 to 2012, was a member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Global Sustainability Panel. She is a founding member of The Elders and served as the organization’s Deputy Chair from 2013 to 2018. She has been the co-chair of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board since 2018.

Graça Machel Founder and Chair, Graça Machel Trust and the Foundation for Community Development; Deputy Chair, The Elders; Former freedom fighter and first Education Minister of Mozambique

Graça Machel is an African stateswoman whose decades long professional and public life is rooted in Mozambique’s struggle for self-rule and international advocacy for women and children’s rights. She is a former freedom fighter in Mozambique’s FRELIMO movement and that country’s first Minister of Education. Machel is a founding member and Deputy Chair of The Elders, and played a key role in establishing Girls Not Brides. She is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Development Goals Advocacy Group, and Board Chair Emeritus for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH). Machel has created three non-governmental organizations in her own right, including the Graça Machel Trust where she focuses on advocating for women’s economic and financial empowerment, food security and nutrition, education for all, as well as good governance.

Graça Machel’s photo attributed to: FORBES AFRICA - Photos by Motlabana Monnakgotla

Loyce Pace President and Executive Director Global Health Council

Ms. Loyce Pace, MPH is an outspoken advocate and expert on domestic and international health issues from AIDS to Zika, with over 20 years of experience in health policy, programs, and funding. She regularly speaks to U.S. and international decision-makers about the value of investing in these priorities. Having lived and worked on the ground in more than 15 countries across 3 continents, her efforts are rooted in experience partnering with a wide range of stakeholders around the world, including government officials, multilateral bodies, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and universities as well as community-based and grassroots leaders. She is a proud member of several boards dedicated to global service and solidarity. As a resilient daughter of the inner city who’s worked her way into the halls of Congress and the UN, she is keen to pass the baton to emerging champions for equity and justice.

Claudia López Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia

Claudia López was elected Mayor of Bogota in October 2019 and started her mandate on 1 January 2020. She became the city's first female and also the first openly diverse Mayor in Bogota’s history. She has an emphatic focus on environmental, social and anticorruption issues. Lopez was a Senator of the Republic of Colombia between 2014 and 2018 and the vice-presidential candidate in the 2018 presidential election for the Green Alliance party. As a senator, she set an example in the fight against corruption, with results never seen before, she became a prominent figure in the political arena. The public recognizes her tenacity and enormous capacity for collective action, which led her to make her way into academia and public service, becoming the first woman to be elected by popular vote to Colombia's second most important office. She is a finance and international relations graduate from Universidad Externado de Colombia, holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration and Urban Politics from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University.

Mercy Juma Broadcast Journalist BBC Africa

Mercy Juma is a multi-award-winning broadcast and print journalist with more than eight years of media experience, currently working as a Bilingual Correspondent at BBC News.  In 2017, she became the first recipient of the inaugural Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling by The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in partnership with ONE and the Elliott family. She was also one of the four 2015 United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists Fellows. As a speaker and moderator, Mercy has presented on various platforms including the International Journalism Festival and several major global health conferences. She holds a master’s degree in international relations from United States International University – Africa. One of her biggest commitments is towards creating a culture of equality, inclusion and diversity.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Director-General World Health Organization

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected as WHO Director-General for a five-year term by WHO Member States at the Seventieth World Health Assembly in May 2017. He is the first person from the WHO African Region to serve as WHO’s chief technical and administrative officer. Prior to his election as WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012–2016. In this role he led efforts to negotiate the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, in which 193 countries committed to the financing necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Dr Tedros served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Health from 2005–2012, where he led a comprehensive reform of the country’s health system. All roads lead to universal health coverage for Dr Tedros, and he has demonstrated what it takes to expand access to health care with limited resources.

Danielle Mullings Young Expert: Tech for Health (Region of the Americas) and Transform Health, Co-chair of the Resource & Investment Circle

Danielle Mullings is a multidimensional youth leader with interests including technology and the arts. With her natural affinity for leadership and youth empowerment, Danielle represents the voice of young people in technology, education and national issues on councils both locally and internationally. Thus, she currently serves as the Young Expert: Tech for Health (Region of the Americas) and the Co-chair of the Resource &Investment circle, Transform Health. She is also the President of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the West Indies. Danielleaspires to become a world leader in technological representation for the Caribbean and Latin America. 

Helga Fogstad Executive Director the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH)

Helga Fogstad is the Executive Director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH). She is a health economist with extensive experience in forging partnerships and consensus building to promote the health and well-being of women, children and adolescents. Her 30+ years of public health experience, include many years in developing countries at subnational and national levels, as well as at the global level within multilateral and bilateral agencies. Prior to her time at PMNCH, Ms Fogstad was Director of the Department of Global Health, Education and Research at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). Ms Fogstad remains involved in many boards and committees, including the Alliance for Health Policy Systems Research, the Global Health Workforce Alliance, UNITAID, GLOBVAC research programme, the Special Programme of Research in Human Reproduction, the Special Programme of Research in Tropical Disease and the Global Fund’s Strategy, Investment and Impact Committee.

Agnès Soucat Director Department of Health Systems Governance and Financing, World Health Organization

Dr Agnès Soucat is the Director for Health Systems Governance and Financing at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Before joining WHO, she was Global Leader Service Delivery and Lead Economist at the World Bank. She previously was the Director for Human Development for the African Development Bank, where she was responsible for health, education, social protection and jobs for Africa, including 54 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb. She has over 25 years of experience in health and poverty reduction, covering more than 70 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. She was a pioneer of several innovations in health care financing including community-based financing and performance-based financing and authored seminal publications on these topics. She was also commissioner of the recent Lancet and Rockefeller Commission on Planetary Health.

Lisa Hilmi Executive Director CORE Group

Lisa Hilmi is Executive Director of the CORE Group. She has over 30 years of global health experience in 20+ countries, employing both human rights and community-based participatory approaches to address health disparities for women, children and communities. As a nurse, researcher and public health expert, Lisa has worked for global health in policy, research, emergency relief and response, development, workforce development and health systems strengthening, and from local to global levels. She has worked in development settings, led responses to HIV/AIDS/STIs/GBV in refugee and conflict settings, and developed policy for outbreaks, disasters and epidemics in multiple countries. She has led development, relief and rehabilitation efforts with a combined budget exceeding US$ 180 million. Clinically, Lisa has worked in a paediatric hospital as well as community, academic and crisis settings, and has held leadership positions at the UN, Sigma Theta Tau International, international NGOs and foundations.

Abelone Melesse UNICEF National Ambassador, Ethiopia UNICEF

Abelone Melesse is a 25-year-old singer, rapper and songwriter.

Abelone is Ethiopian by origin but born and raised in Norway/Stavanger.

Abelone is interested in making music and using music to convey positive messages about Ethiopia and other countries to the world by focusing on women and children’s rights issues. Due to her interest to work on women and children’s issues in Ethiopia and beyond, Abelone became an UNICEF National Ambassador to Ethiopia on 20 November 2014.

She has been actively engaged in different activities in line with her role as a UNICEF National Ambassador to Ethiopia.

Driven by humanity and the enthusiasm to help her country of origin, she has engaged in several projects/global health conferences worldwide performing her songs.

For this evening she has made a song especially for this event.

Mercy Juma Broadcast Journalist BBC Africa

Mercy Juma is a multi-award-winning broadcast and print journalist with more than eight years of media experience, currently working as a Bilingual Correspondent at BBC News.  In 2017, she became the first recipient of the inaugural Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling by The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in partnership with ONE and the Elliott family. She was also one of the four 2015 United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists Fellows. As a speaker and moderator, Mercy has presented on various platforms including the International Journalism Festival and several major global health conferences. She holds a master’s degree in international relations from United States International University – Africa. One of her biggest commitments is towards creating a culture of equality, inclusion and diversity.

Githinji Gitahi Group CEO AMREF Africa, Co-Chair of UHC 2030

Dr Githinji Gitahi joined Amref Health Africa as the Group Chief Executive Officer in June 2015. Prior to his appointment, Dr Gitahi was the Vice President and Regional Director for Africa, Smile Train International. He has also served as the Managing Director for Monitor Publications in Uganda as well as the General Manager for Marketing and Circulation in East Africa for the Nation Media Group. He held progressively senior positions at GlaxoSmithKline and worked at the Avenue Group and in the insurance industry. Dr Gitahi is Co-Chair of the UHC2030 Steering Committee, and is a member of the Private Sector Advisory Board of Africa CDC, and the Global Health Investment Advisory Board. Dr Gitahi has a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Nairobi; a Master’s in Business Administration, majoring in Marketing, from United States International University and is also the recipient of the presidential commendation, the Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear.

Helen Clark Board Chair the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH); Former Prime Minister of New Zealand

Helen Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand for three successive terms from 1999 to 2008. She was the first woman to become Prime Minister following a General Election in New Zealand and the second woman to serve as Prime Minister. Throughout her tenure as Prime Minister and as a Member of Parliament over 27 years, Helen Clark engaged widely in policy development and advocacy across the international affairs, economic, social, environmental and cultural spheres. In April 2009, Helen Clark became Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. She was the first woman to lead the organization and served two terms there. At the same time, she was Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of all UN funds, programmes, agencies and departments working on development issues. As Administrator, she led UNDP to be ranked the most transparent global development organization. Prior to entering the New Zealand Parliament, Helen Clark taught in the Political Studies Department of the University of Auckland, from which she earlier graduated with her BA and MA (Hons) degrees.

Helen Clark’s photo credited to: Kieran Scott

Gro Harlem Brundtland Co-Chair Global Preparedness Monitoring Board

Global Pandemic Monitoring Board co-Chair, Former Prime Minister of Norway, Former Director- General of the World Health Organization

Dr. Brundtland, a medical doctor, was Norway’s first woman Prime Minister, serving a total of ten years as head of government between 1981 and 1996. She was Director-General of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003, UN Special Envoy for Climate Change from 2007 to 2010 and, from 2011 to 2012, was a member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Global Sustainability Panel. She is a founding member of The Elders and served as the organization’s Deputy Chair from 2013 to 2018. She has been the co-chair of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board since 2018.

Graça Machel Founder and Chair, Graça Machel Trust and the Foundation for Community Development; Deputy Chair, The Elders; Former freedom fighter and first Education Minister of Mozambique

Graça Machel is an African stateswoman whose decades long professional and public life is rooted in Mozambique’s struggle for self-rule and international advocacy for women and children’s rights. She is a former freedom fighter in Mozambique’s FRELIMO movement and that country’s first Minister of Education. Machel is a founding member and Deputy Chair of The Elders, and played a key role in establishing Girls Not Brides. She is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Development Goals Advocacy Group, and Board Chair Emeritus for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH). Machel has created three non-governmental organizations in her own right, including the Graça Machel Trust where she focuses on advocating for women’s economic and financial empowerment, food security and nutrition, education for all, as well as good governance.

Graça Machel’s photo attributed to: FORBES AFRICA - Photos by Motlabana Monnakgotla

Loyce Pace President and Executive Director Global Health Council

Ms. Loyce Pace, MPH is an outspoken advocate and expert on domestic and international health issues from AIDS to Zika, with over 20 years of experience in health policy, programs, and funding. She regularly speaks to U.S. and international decision-makers about the value of investing in these priorities. Having lived and worked on the ground in more than 15 countries across 3 continents, her efforts are rooted in experience partnering with a wide range of stakeholders around the world, including government officials, multilateral bodies, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and universities as well as community-based and grassroots leaders. She is a proud member of several boards dedicated to global service and solidarity. As a resilient daughter of the inner city who’s worked her way into the halls of Congress and the UN, she is keen to pass the baton to emerging champions for equity and justice.

Claudia López Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia

Claudia López was elected Mayor of Bogota in October 2019 and started her mandate on 1 January 2020. She became the city's first female and also the first openly diverse Mayor in Bogota’s history. She has an emphatic focus on environmental, social and anticorruption issues. Lopez was a Senator of the Republic of Colombia between 2014 and 2018 and the vice-presidential candidate in the 2018 presidential election for the Green Alliance party. As a senator, she set an example in the fight against corruption, with results never seen before, she became a prominent figure in the political arena. The public recognizes her tenacity and enormous capacity for collective action, which led her to make her way into academia and public service, becoming the first woman to be elected by popular vote to Colombia's second most important office. She is a finance and international relations graduate from Universidad Externado de Colombia, holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration and Urban Politics from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University.

Mercy Juma Broadcast Journalist BBC Africa

Mercy Juma is a multi-award-winning broadcast and print journalist with more than eight years of media experience, currently working as a Bilingual Correspondent at BBC News.  In 2017, she became the first recipient of the inaugural Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling by The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in partnership with ONE and the Elliott family. She was also one of the four 2015 United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists Fellows. As a speaker and moderator, Mercy has presented on various platforms including the International Journalism Festival and several major global health conferences. She holds a master’s degree in international relations from United States International University – Africa. One of her biggest commitments is towards creating a culture of equality, inclusion and diversity.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Director-General World Health Organization

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected as WHO Director-General for a five-year term by WHO Member States at the Seventieth World Health Assembly in May 2017. He is the first person from the WHO African Region to serve as WHO’s chief technical and administrative officer. Prior to his election as WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012–2016. In this role he led efforts to negotiate the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, in which 193 countries committed to the financing necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Dr Tedros served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Health from 2005–2012, where he led a comprehensive reform of the country’s health system. All roads lead to universal health coverage for Dr Tedros, and he has demonstrated what it takes to expand access to health care with limited resources.

Danielle Mullings Young Expert: Tech for Health (Region of the Americas) and Transform Health, Co-chair of the Resource & Investment Circle

Danielle Mullings is a multidimensional youth leader with interests including technology and the arts. With her natural affinity for leadership and youth empowerment, Danielle represents the voice of young people in technology, education and national issues on councils both locally and internationally. Thus, she currently serves as the Young Expert: Tech for Health (Region of the Americas) and the Co-chair of the Resource &Investment circle, Transform Health. She is also the President of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the West Indies. Danielleaspires to become a world leader in technological representation for the Caribbean and Latin America. 

Helga Fogstad Executive Director the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH)

Helga Fogstad is the Executive Director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH). She is a health economist with extensive experience in forging partnerships and consensus building to promote the health and well-being of women, children and adolescents. Her 30+ years of public health experience, include many years in developing countries at subnational and national levels, as well as at the global level within multilateral and bilateral agencies. Prior to her time at PMNCH, Ms Fogstad was Director of the Department of Global Health, Education and Research at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). Ms Fogstad remains involved in many boards and committees, including the Alliance for Health Policy Systems Research, the Global Health Workforce Alliance, UNITAID, GLOBVAC research programme, the Special Programme of Research in Human Reproduction, the Special Programme of Research in Tropical Disease and the Global Fund’s Strategy, Investment and Impact Committee.

Agnès Soucat Director Department of Health Systems Governance and Financing, World Health Organization

Dr Agnès Soucat is the Director for Health Systems Governance and Financing at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Before joining WHO, she was Global Leader Service Delivery and Lead Economist at the World Bank. She previously was the Director for Human Development for the African Development Bank, where she was responsible for health, education, social protection and jobs for Africa, including 54 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb. She has over 25 years of experience in health and poverty reduction, covering more than 70 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. She was a pioneer of several innovations in health care financing including community-based financing and performance-based financing and authored seminal publications on these topics. She was also commissioner of the recent Lancet and Rockefeller Commission on Planetary Health.

Lisa Hilmi Executive Director CORE Group

Lisa Hilmi is Executive Director of the CORE Group. She has over 30 years of global health experience in 20+ countries, employing both human rights and community-based participatory approaches to address health disparities for women, children and communities. As a nurse, researcher and public health expert, Lisa has worked for global health in policy, research, emergency relief and response, development, workforce development and health systems strengthening, and from local to global levels. She has worked in development settings, led responses to HIV/AIDS/STIs/GBV in refugee and conflict settings, and developed policy for outbreaks, disasters and epidemics in multiple countries. She has led development, relief and rehabilitation efforts with a combined budget exceeding US$ 180 million. Clinically, Lisa has worked in a paediatric hospital as well as community, academic and crisis settings, and has held leadership positions at the UN, Sigma Theta Tau International, international NGOs and foundations.

Abelone Melesse UNICEF National Ambassador, Ethiopia UNICEF

Abelone Melesse is a 25-year-old singer, rapper and songwriter.

Abelone is Ethiopian by origin but born and raised in Norway/Stavanger.

Abelone is interested in making music and using music to convey positive messages about Ethiopia and other countries to the world by focusing on women and children’s rights issues. Due to her interest to work on women and children’s issues in Ethiopia and beyond, Abelone became an UNICEF National Ambassador to Ethiopia on 20 November 2014.

She has been actively engaged in different activities in line with her role as a UNICEF National Ambassador to Ethiopia.

Driven by humanity and the enthusiasm to help her country of origin, she has engaged in several projects/global health conferences worldwide performing her songs.

For this evening she has made a song especially for this event.

Mercy Juma Broadcast Journalist BBC Africa

Mercy Juma is a multi-award-winning broadcast and print journalist with more than eight years of media experience, currently working as a Bilingual Correspondent at BBC News.  In 2017, she became the first recipient of the inaugural Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling by The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in partnership with ONE and the Elliott family. She was also one of the four 2015 United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists Fellows. As a speaker and moderator, Mercy has presented on various platforms including the International Journalism Festival and several major global health conferences. She holds a master’s degree in international relations from United States International University – Africa. One of her biggest commitments is towards creating a culture of equality, inclusion and diversity.

Githinji Gitahi Group CEO AMREF Africa, Co-Chair of UHC 2030

Dr Githinji Gitahi joined Amref Health Africa as the Group Chief Executive Officer in June 2015. Prior to his appointment, Dr Gitahi was the Vice President and Regional Director for Africa, Smile Train International. He has also served as the Managing Director for Monitor Publications in Uganda as well as the General Manager for Marketing and Circulation in East Africa for the Nation Media Group. He held progressively senior positions at GlaxoSmithKline and worked at the Avenue Group and in the insurance industry. Dr Gitahi is Co-Chair of the UHC2030 Steering Committee, and is a member of the Private Sector Advisory Board of Africa CDC, and the Global Health Investment Advisory Board. Dr Gitahi has a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Nairobi; a Master’s in Business Administration, majoring in Marketing, from United States International University and is also the recipient of the presidential commendation, the Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear.

Helen Clark Board Chair the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH); Former Prime Minister of New Zealand

Helen Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand for three successive terms from 1999 to 2008. She was the first woman to become Prime Minister following a General Election in New Zealand and the second woman to serve as Prime Minister. Throughout her tenure as Prime Minister and as a Member of Parliament over 27 years, Helen Clark engaged widely in policy development and advocacy across the international affairs, economic, social, environmental and cultural spheres. In April 2009, Helen Clark became Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. She was the first woman to lead the organization and served two terms there. At the same time, she was Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of all UN funds, programmes, agencies and departments working on development issues. As Administrator, she led UNDP to be ranked the most transparent global development organization. Prior to entering the New Zealand Parliament, Helen Clark taught in the Political Studies Department of the University of Auckland, from which she earlier graduated with her BA and MA (Hons) degrees.

Helen Clark’s photo credited to: Kieran Scott

Gro Harlem Brundtland Co-Chair Global Preparedness Monitoring Board

Global Pandemic Monitoring Board co-Chair, Former Prime Minister of Norway, Former Director- General of the World Health Organization

Dr. Brundtland, a medical doctor, was Norway’s first woman Prime Minister, serving a total of ten years as head of government between 1981 and 1996. She was Director-General of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003, UN Special Envoy for Climate Change from 2007 to 2010 and, from 2011 to 2012, was a member of the United Nations Secretary General’s Global Sustainability Panel. She is a founding member of The Elders and served as the organization’s Deputy Chair from 2013 to 2018. She has been the co-chair of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board since 2018.

Graça Machel Founder and Chair, Graça Machel Trust and the Foundation for Community Development; Deputy Chair, The Elders; Former freedom fighter and first Education Minister of Mozambique

Graça Machel is an African stateswoman whose decades long professional and public life is rooted in Mozambique’s struggle for self-rule and international advocacy for women and children’s rights. She is a former freedom fighter in Mozambique’s FRELIMO movement and that country’s first Minister of Education. Machel is a founding member and Deputy Chair of The Elders, and played a key role in establishing Girls Not Brides. She is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Development Goals Advocacy Group, and Board Chair Emeritus for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH). Machel has created three non-governmental organizations in her own right, including the Graça Machel Trust where she focuses on advocating for women’s economic and financial empowerment, food security and nutrition, education for all, as well as good governance.

Graça Machel’s photo attributed to: FORBES AFRICA - Photos by Motlabana Monnakgotla

Loyce Pace President and Executive Director Global Health Council

Ms. Loyce Pace, MPH is an outspoken advocate and expert on domestic and international health issues from AIDS to Zika, with over 20 years of experience in health policy, programs, and funding. She regularly speaks to U.S. and international decision-makers about the value of investing in these priorities. Having lived and worked on the ground in more than 15 countries across 3 continents, her efforts are rooted in experience partnering with a wide range of stakeholders around the world, including government officials, multilateral bodies, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and universities as well as community-based and grassroots leaders. She is a proud member of several boards dedicated to global service and solidarity. As a resilient daughter of the inner city who’s worked her way into the halls of Congress and the UN, she is keen to pass the baton to emerging champions for equity and justice.

Claudia López Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia

Claudia López was elected Mayor of Bogota in October 2019 and started her mandate on 1 January 2020. She became the city's first female and also the first openly diverse Mayor in Bogota’s history. She has an emphatic focus on environmental, social and anticorruption issues. Lopez was a Senator of the Republic of Colombia between 2014 and 2018 and the vice-presidential candidate in the 2018 presidential election for the Green Alliance party. As a senator, she set an example in the fight against corruption, with results never seen before, she became a prominent figure in the political arena. The public recognizes her tenacity and enormous capacity for collective action, which led her to make her way into academia and public service, becoming the first woman to be elected by popular vote to Colombia's second most important office. She is a finance and international relations graduate from Universidad Externado de Colombia, holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration and Urban Politics from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University.

Mercy Juma Broadcast Journalist BBC Africa

Mercy Juma is a multi-award-winning broadcast and print journalist with more than eight years of media experience, currently working as a Bilingual Correspondent at BBC News.  In 2017, she became the first recipient of the inaugural Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling by The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) in partnership with ONE and the Elliott family. She was also one of the four 2015 United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists Fellows. As a speaker and moderator, Mercy has presented on various platforms including the International Journalism Festival and several major global health conferences. She holds a master’s degree in international relations from United States International University – Africa. One of her biggest commitments is towards creating a culture of equality, inclusion and diversity.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Director-General World Health Organization

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected as WHO Director-General for a five-year term by WHO Member States at the Seventieth World Health Assembly in May 2017. He is the first person from the WHO African Region to serve as WHO’s chief technical and administrative officer. Prior to his election as WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012–2016. In this role he led efforts to negotiate the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, in which 193 countries committed to the financing necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Dr Tedros served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Health from 2005–2012, where he led a comprehensive reform of the country’s health system. All roads lead to universal health coverage for Dr Tedros, and he has demonstrated what it takes to expand access to health care with limited resources.

Danielle Mullings Young Expert: Tech for Health (Region of the Americas) and Transform Health, Co-chair of the Resource & Investment Circle

Danielle Mullings is a multidimensional youth leader with interests including technology and the arts. With her natural affinity for leadership and youth empowerment, Danielle represents the voice of young people in technology, education and national issues on councils both locally and internationally. Thus, she currently serves as the Young Expert: Tech for Health (Region of the Americas) and the Co-chair of the Resource &Investment circle, Transform Health. She is also the President of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the West Indies. Danielleaspires to become a world leader in technological representation for the Caribbean and Latin America. 

Helga Fogstad Executive Director the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH)

Helga Fogstad is the Executive Director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH). She is a health economist with extensive experience in forging partnerships and consensus building to promote the health and well-being of women, children and adolescents. Her 30+ years of public health experience, include many years in developing countries at subnational and national levels, as well as at the global level within multilateral and bilateral agencies. Prior to her time at PMNCH, Ms Fogstad was Director of the Department of Global Health, Education and Research at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). Ms Fogstad remains involved in many boards and committees, including the Alliance for Health Policy Systems Research, the Global Health Workforce Alliance, UNITAID, GLOBVAC research programme, the Special Programme of Research in Human Reproduction, the Special Programme of Research in Tropical Disease and the Global Fund’s Strategy, Investment and Impact Committee.

Agnès Soucat Director Department of Health Systems Governance and Financing, World Health Organization

Dr Agnès Soucat is the Director for Health Systems Governance and Financing at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Before joining WHO, she was Global Leader Service Delivery and Lead Economist at the World Bank. She previously was the Director for Human Development for the African Development Bank, where she was responsible for health, education, social protection and jobs for Africa, including 54 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb. She has over 25 years of experience in health and poverty reduction, covering more than 70 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. She was a pioneer of several innovations in health care financing including community-based financing and performance-based financing and authored seminal publications on these topics. She was also commissioner of the recent Lancet and Rockefeller Commission on Planetary Health.

Lisa Hilmi Executive Director CORE Group

Lisa Hilmi is Executive Director of the CORE Group. She has over 30 years of global health experience in 20+ countries, employing both human rights and community-based participatory approaches to address health disparities for women, children and communities. As a nurse, researcher and public health expert, Lisa has worked for global health in policy, research, emergency relief and response, development, workforce development and health systems strengthening, and from local to global levels. She has worked in development settings, led responses to HIV/AIDS/STIs/GBV in refugee and conflict settings, and developed policy for outbreaks, disasters and epidemics in multiple countries. She has led development, relief and rehabilitation efforts with a combined budget exceeding US$ 180 million. Clinically, Lisa has worked in a paediatric hospital as well as community, academic and crisis settings, and has held leadership positions at the UN, Sigma Theta Tau International, international NGOs and foundations.

Abelone Melesse UNICEF National Ambassador, Ethiopia UNICEF

Abelone Melesse is a 25-year-old singer, rapper and songwriter.

Abelone is Ethiopian by origin but born and raised in Norway/Stavanger.

Abelone is interested in making music and using music to convey positive messages about Ethiopia and other countries to the world by focusing on women and children’s rights issues. Due to her interest to work on women and children’s issues in Ethiopia and beyond, Abelone became an UNICEF National Ambassador to Ethiopia on 20 November 2014.

She has been actively engaged in different activities in line with her role as a UNICEF National Ambassador to Ethiopia.

Driven by humanity and the enthusiasm to help her country of origin, she has engaged in several projects/global health conferences worldwide performing her songs.

For this evening she has made a song especially for this event.