Investing in a qualified health workforce is key in supporting healthy populations and prosperous economies. Yet, the World Health Organization estimates there will be a shortfall of 18 million health care workers by 2030. Join us for a practical and forward-looking conversation highlighting the importance of investing in doctors, nurses, and midwives to achieve UHC - and exploring the paths that will get us there.
Ambassador-at-Large, Deborah L. Birx, M.D., is the Coordinator of the United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy. Ambassador Birx is a world-renowned medical expert and leader in the field of HIV/AIDS. Her three-decade-long career has focused on HIV/AIDS immunology, vaccine research, and global health. As the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, Ambassador Birx oversees the implementation of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in history, as well as all U.S. Government engagement with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
She is Rwandan paediatrician, medical administrator and politician. Between 2010 and 2016, she worked with a USAID-funded child and maternal health project as “Senior Team Leader” for quality and as “Deputy Chief of Party”. Also, she served as the Cabinet Minister of Gender and Family Promotion in the Rwandan Cabinet. Currently, She is the Minister of Health in the Cabinet of Rwanda.
Haruhiko Hirate became Takeda’s Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Officer in October 2014. He previously served as President of North Asia in 2011, and has held Corporate Officer and Senior Vice President positions at Takeda since 2010. Prior to joining Takeda, Mr. Hirate held the position of Representative Senior Managing Director at GlaxoSmithKline in Japan and, before that, Representative Director and President of Banyu Pharmaceuticals, the Japanese subsidiary of Merck & Co. He joined Banyu Pharmaceuticals in 2004 from his role as Senior Vice President at Merck & Co, based in the U.S. He had previously held the position of Representative Director and President at Roche Diagnostics based in Japan and before that, Asia Pacific Regional President of Draeger.
Dr. Kerry is the co-founder and the CEO of Seed Global Health. Having worked in resource‐limited settings for over a decade, Dr. Kerry has witnessed health inequities around many places in the world and how shortages of local health providers in their home countries contribute to those inequities. She envisions a solution where the growing number of health professionals interested in global health serve as educators and faculty in these countries to build a pipeline of future in‐country providers and help save lives.
Raj Kumar leads a global team of over 100 Devexers and serves a community of 1 million global development professionals. His personal experience in over 50 countries, including a childhood partly spent in rural India, informs his work.
Keizo Takemi is a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) member of the House of Councillors of the National Diet of Japan. He serves as chair of the parliamentary caucus on the Stop TB partnership and the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development. In 2016, he was appointed to the UN High Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth, and in 2018, to the UHC Financing Advisory Committee for the G20 2019. He has served as Senior Vice Minister for Health, Labour and Welfare, and State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, where he led the initiative to establish the UN Trust Fund for Human Security. Within the LDP, he is chairperson of Special Committee on Global Health Strategy of LDP Policy Research Council.