I welcome the release of the Bayer Sustainability Council 2025 Annual Report, to which I was honoured to contribute through active advisory engagement, strategic review, and the provision of systems-level insight alongside my fellow Council members.

As an independent body of global experts, the Council plays a vital role in both supporting and constructively challenging Bayer’s leadership, ensuring that sustainability commitments are not simply ambitious but measurable, accountable, and firmly anchored in real-world impact.

This year’s report reflects meaningful progress at scale, with Bayer reaching more than 80 million people in undersupported communities through self-care interventions and 68 million women with access to modern contraception, while continuing to advance its ambition to reach 100 million women annually by 2030. These figures reflect tangible progress, representing lives improved, choices expanded, and futures strengthened across communities where access has too often been limited.

My contribution to this work has been shaped by a sustained focus on the intersection of climate and health, particularly through African and Nigerian perspectives, where the impacts of climate change are already accelerating risks for maternal, newborn, and child health. Across many communities, heat stress, food insecurity, and shifting disease patterns are converging in ways that place additional strain on families and health systems, and it is essential that these lived realities inform global strategy and decision-making.

The report further highlights advances in nutrition, agriculture, and global health delivery, from expanding access to micronutrients to supporting smallholder farmers and strengthening supply chains in low and middle-income settings.

I look forward to continuing this important collaboration with fellow Council members, Bayer teams, and through my Wellbeing Foundation Africa as we work collectively to advance climate, nutrition and health integration, strengthen systems, and deliver meaningful progress for communities across Africa and globally.

 

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