News

The New Board election for the upcoming term starting 2021–2024 was undertaken on November 2020. Results of the election were announced on 27 December 2020.

The new board members are:

1. Dr Ahmed Galal (Egypt)
Dr Ahmed Galal is currently the chairman of the Board of Trustees of MENA Health Policy Forum. He is also the president and chairman of the board of the Forum Euroméditerranéen des Instituts des Sciences Économiques (FEMISE) and the former managing director of the Economic Research Forum (ERF). He is also a member of the board of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

Dr. Galal was Egypt’s finance minister from July 2013 to February 2014. Before that, he worked for the World Bank for 18 years, conducting research and providing policy advice to governments in several regions.

2. Dr Elsheikh Badr (Sudan)
Dr Elsheikh Badr is a public health physician and a health workforce expert and strategist with over 20 years’ service in senior health systems and health workforce positions in Sudan and beyond.

Dr Badr was the Deputy D.G. Health Workforce Development at the Federal Ministry of Health and President of the Academy of Health Sciences, a large, decentralized health professions education institution. He also served as Secretary General for the Sudan Medical Specialization Board, the prime postgraduate medical education body in the country.

Dr Badr has been widely involved in national, regional, and global health workforce initiatives. His role included serving in several WHO expert and advisory committees in addition to membership of important regional and global networks on health systems and health workforce.

As a WHO health workforce consultant, he produced several reports on health workforce strategies, organizational development, and educational systems. He also published across health workforce development issues including migration.

Dr Badr recently joined the National Qualifications Authority in the UAE as advisor and policy expert working on the development of postgraduate medical education capacity. He has been involved with MENA HPF since 2009 and was elected first for membership of its Board of Trustees in 2016 and in 2020 for a second term.

3. Dr Salwa Najab (Palestine)
Dr Salwa Najab has over 30 years of expertise in the fields of public health, reproductive, and women’s health rights. She is currently the Managing Director of Juzoor for health and social development and the chairperson for the MENA Health Policy Forum.

Dr. Salwa is an expert in women’s health issues and founder of a number of women’s health and maternal mortality reduction programs, including development of community health and specialized training programs for nurses and midwives.

She has written and adapted clinical training materials, publications and protocols on a variety of subjects including safe delivery, family planning, neonatal health and infection control. She founded the first women’s Health program in PMRS.

She also led the effort to establish maternity homes in Palestine, directing efforts to secure Ministry of Health support for the concept and designing an effective and comprehensive program.

Dr. Najjab has also co-founded a number of influential grass-roots Palestinian organizations, and has lectured extensively on women’s health internationally and throughout Palestine.

4. Dr Habiba Ben Roumdhane (Tunisia)
Dr Habiba Ben Roumdhane is a professor of Preventive Medicine and director of the Epidemiology and Prevention Research Department of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) at the University of Tunis.

Dr. Ben Romdhane was the Tunisian Minister of Health and Chief Executive Officer for the National Board of Family and Population. She was elected through Distinction as a Fellow in the Faculty of Public Health at the Royal College of Physicians in the UK.

Dr. Ben Romdhane coordinated several epidemiological studies on non communicable diseases (NCDs), implemented the Healthy Urbanization Project in Tunisia, and led the implementation of the first Tunisian CVD Registry.

She is currently leading several European Union funded projects including TAHINA, Med CHAMPS, RESCAP-MED, and the Epidemiological Transition & Health Impact in North Africa.

She led the implementation of the first National Observatory on Women (1994) and is a co-founder and chair of the Tunisian Society of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine; co-founder and board member of RESSMA; and cofounder and chair of the National Observatory of Health Equity.

In 2001, she was awarded the Maghreb Medical Science Society Award for her work on CVD Epidemiology & Prevention.

5. Dr Mohannad Al Nsour (Jordan)
Dr Mohannad Al Nsour is a medical doctor and an internationally recognized expert in field epidemiology, operational research, and public health systems.

He served as researcher, advisor, director, and consultant with CDC, WHO, and the American University of Beirut. He has been leading the Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET) since 2009.

Under his leadership, GHD|EMPHNET became a regional platform supporting public health policies, surveillance, IHR, and public health program development.

He serves on several regional and global initiatives including GOARN and TEPHINET and is currently leading the establishment of the Public Health Forum and the NCD Alliance in Jordan.

6. Dr Mary Al Deeb (Lebanon)
Mary E. Deeb is an associate professor at the Lebanese American University, Gilbert and Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine, Beirut, Lebanon, and coordinator of the population health and global medicine theme.

She holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and an MPH from the American University of Beirut. She has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and edited the book “Beirut a Health Profile: 1984–1994”.

7. Lubna Al-Ansary (Saudi Arabia)
Lubna Al-Ansary is a Professor of Family Medicine at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She is a former member of Majlis Al-Shura and former Assistant Director General at WHO.

She returned to academic life at KSU and is currently leading the clinical practice guidelines committee. She was elected to serve as a member of the Board of Trustees for a second term.