African Women’s Leadership Series: Women Shifting the Health Landscape in Africa
Date: Wednesday March 31, 2021
Time: 10:00-11:30 PST/VANCOUVER, 7:00- 8:30 PM RWANDA/ BOTSWANA, 6:00-7:30 PM UK
View the event recording here.
Event description:
The month of March is Women’s History Month, a unique period that marks women’s historical and contemporary nobel achievements across the world. In line with this significant moment and the impetus for gender equality, our new African Women’s Leadership Series, we will celebrate African women’s outstanding contributions and examine the prevailing challenges that still require intensified investments for change to empower women.
For our first installment of the series, this event will serve as a platform to celebrate two incredible African women leaders’ achievements in shaping and advancing the African and global health sector. The event will also be an opportunity for emerging young female leaders and global change agents in the audience to learn from and be inspired by the career journeys of the speakers. Professor Agnes Binagwaho and Professor Sheila Tlou will share their journeys and current work on improving health, gender equality and women’s role in Africa’s development agenda. There will also be an opportunity to ask them questions, in a Q&A segment called “Ask me anything.” The moderator for this event is Dr. Neo Tapela.
There is an optional dress code: African prints encouraged!
This event is brought to you on behalf of the Liu Institute Network for Africa (LINA), and the Collective for Gender+ in Research, hosted at the University of British Columbia’s Office for Regional and International Community Engagement (UBC ORICE), all within the UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (UBC SPPGA).
Moderator:
Dr. Neo Tapela, Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford
Dr Tapela is an internal medicine physician, epidemiologist and implementation researcher who is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Population Health. Her research specializes in understanding the determinants and outcomes of chronic non communicable diseases (NCDs) in sub-Saharan Africa, and designing innovative equity-driven interventions to address these conditions in integrated ways and particularly serving rural and poor populations. She has over a decade’s experience leading funded research in the region, coupled with practical experience in health policy, NCD strategic planning and program leadership in Rwanda (Director of NCDs Program with the international equity-driven NGO, Partners In Health) and Botswana (former Head of Botswana’s National NCDs Program).
Featured Speakers:
Professor Agnes Binagwaho, Co-founder and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity and Former Minister of Health in Rwanda
Professor Agnes Binagwaho, MD, M(Ped), PHD is a Rwandan pediatrician who returned to Rwanda in July of 1996, two years after the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. Since then, she has provided clinical care in the public sector, served the Rwandan Health Sector (2001-2016) in high-level government positions, first as the Executive Secretary of Rwanda’s National AIDS Control Commission, then as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, and 5 years as Minister of Health. She co-founded the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE), an initiative of Partners In Health, which focuses on changing how healthcare is delivered around the world by training global health professionals who strive to deliver more equitable, quality health services for all.
Professor Binagwaho currently resides in Rwanda and is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity. She is also a senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a Professor of Pediatrics at UGHE, as well as an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. Professor Binagwaho’s academic engagements include research in implementation sciences, research on human rights to health, health services delivery systems strengthening, HIV/AIDS, and pediatric care. She has published over 190 peer- reviewed articles.
Profesor Sheila Tlou, Former UNAIDS Director of the Regional Support Team for Eastern and Southern Africa, Former Member of Parliament and Minister of Health of Botswana
Prof. Sheila Tlou is Co-Chair of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition and Co-Chair of Nursing Now Global Campaign. She is former UNAIDS Regional Director for Eastern/Southern Africa, former Minister of Health of Botswana, and former Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing Development in Primary Health Care.
As UNAIDS Regional Director, Prof. Tlou provided leadership and Political Advocacy for sustainable AIDS response in 21 African countries. As Co-Chair of the Nursing Now Campaign, she leads a global movement, run in collaboration with the WHO and ICN, which aims to maximise nurses’ contributions to achievement of Universal Health Coverage. The Global HIV Prevention Coalition addresses the rise in new infections despite success in treatment in all countries. As Minister of Health, Prof. Tlou led a comprehensive AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support program which is still a model in Africa. She represented Eastern and Southern Africa in the Board of the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria. She has received over thirty awards, among them Botswana Presidential Order of Honor, Princess Srinagarindra Award from Thailand, Christianne Reimann Award from ICN, and Princess Muna Al Hussein Award. She is United Nations Eminent Person for Women, Girls, and HIV/AIDS.
Prof. Tlou has a PhD in Nursing from University of Illinois at Chicago and has many publications on Human rights and HIV/AIDS.
RSVP for the event here!