Africa-Europe Foundation

Mohamed Ramy’s work focuses on understanding how inclusive policies can resolve the divisive inequalities in healthcare systems. He previously undertook a Thomas J. Watson fellowship to explore the concepts of “healing” and “home” among refugee communities in six countries, before moving onto international development and global health. Ramy contributes to implementing culturally-informed, cross-disciplinary health strategies in Egypt. He currently acts as the Strategy & Partnerships Lead at Generations for Health to empower youth to speak on global health challenges, and has been recruited by DHB Global to lead in the expansion into the MENA market.

Cormac Russell is Managing Director of Nurture Development and a faculty member of the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute at Northwestern University, Chicago. Over the last 20 years, Cormac has worked in over 30 countries around the world. He has trained communities, agencies, NGOs and governments in ABCD and other strengths-based approaches in Kenya, Rwanda, Southern Sudan, South Africa, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia. He is passionate about the proliferation of community-driven change and citizen-centred democracy and has supported hundreds of communities to make ABCD visible through what he calls ABCD Neighbourhood Learning Sites.

Dr Esperança Sevene has worked as Clinical Pharmacologist at Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) for over 25 years. In 2001 as part of the collaboration between UEM and Manhiça Health Research Centre (CISM), she joined the Centre to work on the safe use of drugs and vaccines in pregnancy amongst other areas. She was involved in the implementation of the National Pharmacovigilance System in Mozambique and other African countries in collaboration with the World Health Organization. She currently acts as Director of the PhD Program in Bioscience and Public Health at UEM and part-time Associate Researcher at CISM.

Kristine Sørensen is a health literacy trailblazer, knowledge broker and trusted advisor on health literacy and global health perspectives. She is widely known for being the founding Director of the Global Health Literacy Academy, located in Denmark. Her experience includes work in international institutions, including several EU bodies and the World Health Organization. She also worked at McKinsey. Sørensen received the European Health Award 2012 for the societal impact of the European Health Literacy study, as well as the International Health Literacy Award and the AHLA Global Health Literacy Award 2018. She is co-author of the International Handbook of Health Literacy, and lectures at several leading universities.

Marleen Temmerman is an experienced obstetrician, supervising over 18,000 births in different parts of the world and publishing around 500 contributions in the area of women’s health. Among her several awards and honours, Temmerman was elected in 2007 as Senator in the Belgian Parliament where she was member of the Committee on Social Affairs and Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Her previous leadership positions include Director of the Department of Reproductive Health and Research (RHR) at the World Health Organization, where she was the main penholder of the UN Global Strategy for Women’s, Children and Adolescent’s Health (2016-2030), launched in September 2015.

Sitawa Wafula is a Kenyan social entrepreneur with over 8 years’ experience in national and international mental health advocacy. She is also the founder of My Mind My Funk, a weekly podcast and mental health resource hub that provides people in Africa with mental health information and support. Her portfolio includes bringing mental health conversations to the forefront through her Google award-winning blog, setting up Kenya’s first free mental health support line, and mentoring the next generation of mental health champions in Africa. The impact of her work was recognised in the ‘Top 42 African Innovators to watch’ list.

Sarah Wamala Andersson is Professor of Health and Welfare Technology at Mälardalens University, Sweden. Her current research includes reimbursement, implementation, evidence and effectiveness of digital health interventions. Internationally, Sarah contributes to research capacity building in Africa, training programs in science and leadership for transforming institutions and leadership development for health directors in Africa. Her previous leadership roles include serving as Director General of the Swedish National Institute of Public Health, Director of Health promotion and Disease prevention, Stockholm County Council, Professor of Health policy at Karolinska Institute and as Principal research scientist for multinational pharmaceutical companies.