Awa Marie Coll-Seck


Awa Marie Coll-Seck, is former Executive Director of The Roll Back Malaria Partnership and is on the Board of Directors at the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, Medicines for Malaria Venture, Innovative Vector Control Consortium et al.

Education and publications

After earning a degree in medicine in 1978 from the University of Dakar, Coll-Seck served for nearly twenty years as a specialist in infectious diseases in leading hospitals in Dakar, Senegal and Lyon, France. In 1989, she was appointed Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University of Dakar and Chief of Service for Infectious Diseases at the University Hospital in Dakar.
Coll-Seck is the author of over 150 scientific publications and communications on diverse subjects, and is a member of over 20 professional societies and organizations.

Career

From 2001-2003 and again from 2012-2017, Coll-Seck has served as the Minister of Health of the Republic of Senegal.
From 1996 to 2001, Coll-Seck served as a Director at the Joint United Nations Programme for HIV/AIDS at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. She led the Department of Policy, Strategy and Research, the largest department within UNAIDS consisting of a diverse group of physicians, nurses, researchers, and other international policy and technical experts "best practice" guidance to assist governments and civil society in mounting their national and community responses to the global AIDS epidemic. Awa Marie Coll-Seck was subsequently named Director of the UNAIDS Department of Country and Regional Support, where she coordinated and mobilized the UN system response to the epidemic while supervising UNAIDS staff serving at four regional offices and at country-level offices throughout Africa, Asia, Eastern and Central Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean. She also served as a Commissioner in the UN Secretary General's Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa.
In January 2016, Coll-Seck was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the High-level Advisory Group for Every Woman Every Child. From 2016 until 2018, she served on the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. In 2020, she co-chaired “A future for the world’s children?”, a WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commission.

Other activities

Coll-Seck has been awarded the following professional and academic honours: the Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite de la République Francaise, Chevalier des Palmes Académiques Francaises, Officier de l’Ordre du Mérite Sénégalais and Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite du Burkina Faso. She was elected as chairperson of Commission B of the 2002 World Health Assembly and as President of the Assembly of the Ministries of Health of the West African Health Organization and is currently a member of the Academy of Sciences and Technologies of Senegal.