Thank you to the Global Surgery Foundation @SurgFoundation for the exceptional work you do to ensure that surgical care is integrated into universal health coverage frameworks and held to account within global health policy.

These deaths are preventable, and that must compel us to act with far greater urgency. At my @WellbeingAfrica Foundation, this conviction is what drives our work in communities across Nigeria and in every multilateral space where the decisions that determine women`s lives are made.

We stand with the Global Surgery Foundation in the commitment that every woman, everywhere, can access the safe, quality care she deserves!

📸: @WHO 79th World Health Assembly, Geneva, Switzerland, May 2026

👉 Read the full story from WHA79: https://www.globalsurgeryfoundation.org/news/2026/surgery-takes-centre-stage-wha79 ...

On International Day of @UnitedNations Peacekeepers, and under this year’s theme, “Invest in Peace,” I reflect on the enduring importance of multilateral cooperation, international law, and global solidarity in sustaining peace, justice, and human dignity.

It was a pleasure to meet with Professor Olufemi Elias, Judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice, during the 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva, which coincided with International Law Week; a timely reminder that investing in peace also means investing in health, diplomacy, justice, and the international institutions that uphold our shared humanity.

I warmly congratulate him on his recent international appointments and continued distinguished service in advancing the rule of law and peaceful cooperation among nations.

@UNpeacekeeping
#PKDay #InvestInPeace #WHA79 ...

It is a distinct pleasure to congratulate my dear sister, Her Excellency Mrs @MonicaGeingos, on her appointment as Board Chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health @PMNCH_Insta, the world`s largest alliance for women`s, children`s and adolescents` health and well-being, hosted and administered by the @WHO, succeeding the Rt Hon @HelenClarkNZ whose tenure has been a defining chapter in the Partnership`s strategic advancement.

As a longstanding PMNCH member, observer, and contributor to its MNCH Workstream Group, I have witnessed first-hand what this Partnership represents, bringing together nearly 1,500 organisations, among them the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation, united in the conviction that investing in the lives and futures of the youngest and most vulnerable is the most consequential commitment the world can make. PMNCH`s Strategy 2026–2030: Partnership for Change, which positions accountability as the bedrock of collective progress, sets the normative direction for that work at a defining juncture for global health.

Monica`s stewardship of the Africa REACH Leadership Council has already demonstrated what becomes possible when principled advocacy meets community-centred action at the continental level. #PMNCH gains in her a leader of exceptional calibre, whose commitment to equity, dignity, and the right of every woman and child to thrive is without equal.

#PartnershipForChange
#ThriveThursday
#WellbeingForAll ...

I am honoured to announce my appointment as Co-Chair of the @AfricaREACH1 Leadership Council, a pan-African initiative dedicated to amplifying youth voices and accelerating progress towards an AIDS-free generation, whose health mandate is central to the mission of the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation and to my work in global health advocacy. As an inaugural member of the Council, this appointment marks a natural progression of a commitment that has been present since Africa REACH`s founding, and it is a particular distinction that it comes during Africa Month.

I receive with gratitude this electively entrusted baton of service, in continuance of the pioneering and impactful legacy of Her Excellency Mrs Monica Geingos, a dear friend whose stewardship of the Council has been instrumental in advancing its continental mandate. I am humbled by the trust that she, the Council, and its Secretariat have placed in me.

I will serve alongside Reverend Godson Lawson-Kpavuvu, Vice President of the All Africa Conference of Churches @AACCCETA, in a co-chair model that brings together faith-based community leadership and public health systems expertise, grounded in the conviction that durable health transformation requires both the legitimacy of community trust and the rigour of advocacy operating at the highest levels of continental and global governance.

The Africa REACH Leadership Council`s mandate is closely aligned with the @AfricanUnion_Official’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, anchored in youth-driven advocacy, stigma reduction, expanded access to care, and the building of networks that translate advocacy into institutional decision and public accountability.

Ending AIDS in Africa is a continental imperative that demands African-driven solutions, African leadership, and a resolute commitment to ensuring that no young person on this continent is left behind in the global effort to end AIDS.

#AfricaMonth
#Agenda2063
#EndAIDS
#WellbeingForAll ...

I wish the global Muslim Ummah, and all those celebrating across Nigeria, a blessed and joyful Eid al-Adha.

This is a day of profound faith and sacrifice, of gratitude poured out in prayer, and of all that we are called to give and all that we are so graciously given.

May it bring peace and endless blessings to you and all your loved ones.

#EidMubarak
#EidAlAdha ...

I was glad to contribute to the high-level roundtable on Promoting Global Action on Childhood-Onset Heart Disease to Advance Child Health and Survival, hosted by @ChildrensHeartLink, the @MinistryofHealthNamibia, @GEHealthCare Foundation, @Siemens.Healthineers and the Business Council for International Understanding on the margins of the @WHO 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva.

Congenital heart disease affects approximately 1 in 100 live births, with an estimated 1.35 million babies born each year with the condition, one in four of whom requires cardiac surgery within the first year of life to survive. Up to 90% of children born with CHD in low- and middle-income countries still lack access to essential cardiac care, while 85% of CHD-related deaths in infancy occur in those same settings. Rheumatic heart disease compounds this further, remaining entirely preventable yet endemic across much of sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 1.5 to 3% of school-aged children are affected and where it remains the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children and young adults.

The roundtable convened governments, multilateral institutions, clinical partners and the private sector around a specific and urgent objective, building the political foundations for a dedicated WHA resolution on childhood-onset heart disease that would elevate it as a global health priority, catalyse national action on early detection, treatment and long-term care, and integrate it meaningfully into UHC benefit packages and child health strategies where it has for too long been absent.

The @WellbeingAfrica`s work on maternal and newborn health in Nigeria sits in direct relationship with this agenda. A child born with an undetected congenital heart condition to a mother who survives childbirth through better antenatal care represents a continuum of preventable loss that demands a continuum of political attention, clinical investment, and community-level detection capacity.

#WHA79 
#CongenitalHeartDisease 
#WellbeingForAll ...

I was pleased to join a closed-door roundtable during the @WHO 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva, hosted by Professor Sofia Gruskin, Distinguished Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences and Law and Director of the @USCEdu Institute on Inequalities in Global Health.

The gathering brought together many distinguished global health leaders, including Elhadj As Sy, Chancellor of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine @LSTMNews, Co-Chair of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board and Chair of the @KofiAnnanFoundation Board, and Rajat Khosla, Executive Director of @PMNCH_Insta, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, whose 2026 agenda has centred the urgent need to move from crisis management to genuine system correction across women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health.

The USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health works precisely at the intersection that made this conversation so valuable, advancing the evidence base on what drives health inequality, training the next generation of global health leaders, and engaging directly with the policy processes that determine whether that evidence translates into change. Its cross-sectoral, multidisciplinary approach mirrors the conviction the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation holds that the structural conditions producing unequal health outcomes require equally structural responses, grounded in community experience, driven by rigorous evidence, and accountable to the populations they are designed to serve.

Grateful to Professor Gruskin for convening a conversation of this quality and to all those present for the rigour and candour they brought to it, including Dr Bronwyn King AO, founder and CEO of Tobacco Free Portfolios and Co-Founder of Air Club, whose work at the intersection of health, finance and the built environment represents exactly the kind of cross-sectoral thinking needed.

#WHA79
#HealthEquity
#WellbeingForAll ...

It was an honour to serve as a panellist at the Advancing Maternal Health Through AI-Enabled Medical Devices and Software Panel and Roundtable, hosted by @Philips and the Business Council for International Understanding on the sidelines of the @WHO 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva, an evening that brought together senior clinical, policy and industry leaders around the most consequential implementation challenge in maternal health, extending skilled diagnostic care to the women who need it most, in the settings where the burden of preventable death remains highest.

Convened by Dr. Carla Goulart Peron, Chief Medical Officer at Philips, alongside Dr. Matthew Rielly, Business Leader for Joint Ventures in Access and Obstetrics, Professor Stephen Rulisa of the East Central and Southern Africa College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Professor Marleen Temmerman of Aga Khan University, who contributed her clinical and academic perspective virtually, the discussion centred on AI-enabled point-of-care ultrasound, specifically the SmartSweep application on the Philips Lumify Handheld Ultrasound, which automates image acquisition to support midwives and frontline health workers in identifying gestational age, placenta location and fetal risk parameters without specialist sonography training.

The WHO recommends every pregnant woman receive at least one ultrasound scan before 24 weeks of gestation, a standard that remains out of reach for millions across sub-Saharan Africa, and one that the @WellbeingAfrica has worked to advance through sustained investment in midwife training, community health worker capacity, and increasing frontline access to modern diagnostic tools across Nigeria. The work has shown consistently that when implementation architecture is right, when care pathways are coherent, protocols are co-designed with the workers who deliver them, and deployment is sequenced toward the most underserved communities, technology of this quality produces outcomes that national averages alone will never fully capture.

I look forward to continuing this work with Philips and to the partnerships that will carry it forward.

#WHA79
#AIForHealth
#WellbeingForAll ...

It was an honour to serve on the judging panel for the inaugural Future Health Challenge, delivered by @FutureHealth_Initiative in collaboration with @SolveMIT, during the @WHO 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva, organised around the defining question of this moment in global health, how do we build health systems that anticipate, rather than simply respond?

Five extraordinary finalist teams presented solutions of genuine ambition and real-world evidence. The winner, ThinkMD from Australia, equips frontline health workers with mobile clinical decision-support tools that improve triage, treatment and referral while turning routine care encounters into real-time population health signals, already deployed across more than 9,000 frontline workers in 885 facilities, with demonstrated early warning capability preceding a cholera outbreak in Zambia.

Distinguished Finalists @Vector.Cam, an AI-enabled mosquito surveillance system helping health systems detect vector risks earlier and target interventions before outbreaks escalate, and @Huna.AI Cancer Navigator from Brazil, applying AI to routine blood data to identify elevated cancer risk earlier and having screened more than 500,000 patients with hundreds of cases detected that would otherwise have gone unidentified far longer, each offered proof that anticipatory health intelligence is a present capability, deployable at scale, with measurable population health impact.

What emerged across five teams, five countries, and five entirely distinct approaches was a shared conviction that the solutions most likely to transform health outcomes are those designed to reach the communities carrying the greatest burden of preventable disease, a standard @WellbeingAfrica holds its own work to.

Congratulations to all finalist teams, ThinkMD, VectorCam, Huna Cancer Navigator, SPAQ and Unread Signal, for the quality and ambition of the work presented, and to Future Health, a Global Initiative by Abu Dhabi, in partnership with MIT Solve, for convening a challenge that has advanced the field and set a standard for what innovation in anticipatory health systems can and should look like.

#WHA79
#WellbeingForAll ...

As the @WHOFoundation`s Inaugural Global Health Ambassador, it was a meaningful afternoon to share the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation`s frontline learnings at the roundtable on From Early Warning to Anticipatory Action: Advancing Proactive Emergency Preparedness at @GoalsHouse in Geneva, co-hosted by Dr. Marie Roseline Belizaire, Regional Emergency Director at @WHO_Africa, and Valerie Boulet, Chief Development Officer at the WHO Foundation, with fellow colleagues from @ColgatePalmoliveCo, @GoogleHealth, @Microsoft, among others, as part of the Health Emergencies Alliance convening programme on the sidelines of the @WHO 79th World Health Assembly.

Africa has every capacity to move from response to preparedness, and the infrastructure investment of the past decade has built the foundations to make that possible. The opportunity now is in the translation layer, connecting the signal to the decision with the speed and coherence that communities on the frontline deserve. Our #WBFA health workers are often the first to observe a pattern forming, and the real breakthrough comes when that observation moves upward into a coordinated response in real time. That requires sustained partnership, community trust, political will, and pre-positioned resources. Those are the conditions that make the technology work, and that make platforms like the Preparedness Data Exchange PDX, developed by Dr. Dick Chamla and the Nairobi Emergency Hub team, such an important step forward for the continent.

In 2025 and 2026, the Health Emergencies Alliance has focused specifically on leveraging AI and data to monitor potential health emergencies, and this discussion on what it will genuinely take to move proven preparedness solutions from ambition to scale was exactly the quality of conversation this moment demands, marking what I hope will be the first of many as Goals House at #WHA79 inaugurates this convening platform at the World Health Assembly.

#WellbeingForAll
#OneHealth
#FrontlineFriday ...

As a member of the @BayerOfficial Sustainability Council, it was a privilege to join Dr. Claus Runge, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Public Affairs, Sustainability and Internal Engagement and Chief Health Equity Officer at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, and Dr. Cecilia Caetano, Vice President and Head of Global Medical Affairs for Women’s Health at Bayer, at the Menopause Matters convening hosted by Bayer and @ForeignPolicyMag on the sidelines of the @WHO 79th World Health Assembly. 

By 2030, 1.2 billion women worldwide will be in menopause or postmenopause, many at the peak of their professional and civic lives, and yet menopause remains chronically underfunded, under-researched, and absent from the health systems and workplace policies designed to support them, a reality rigorously documented in the FP Analytics Special Report on the Health and Economic Impacts of Menopause, produced with support from Bayer, and the evidence base that anchored the afternoon’s discussion among policymakers, health practitioners, researchers, and advocates committed to changing that.

As we work collectively to advance Bayer`s global sustainability strategy across health equity, healthcare access, and climate resilience, conversations of this quality and ambition are precisely the mechanism through which practical partnerships are built, actionable solutions are surfaced, and the most systematically neglected issues in global health are finally given the policy attention and investment they demand.

#WHA79 
#StrongerTogether 
#HealthForAll 
#WellbeingForAll ...