Who We Are

De Block is a Belgian politician who served as Minister of Health and Social Affairs from October 2014 to October 2020. She served as State Secretary for Asylum, Migration, Social Integration, and Poverty Reduction from December 2011 to October 2014, and was briefly Minister of Justice in 2014. De Block studied medicine at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel where she graduated as a Doctor of Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics. As Health Minister, De Block placed AMR very high on the political agenda and focused on addressing the spread of multi-resistant STIs and neglected tropical diseases. She is currently a regular member of parliament.

H.E. Ambassador Mathew Wilson is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and other International Organizations in Geneva. He has worked for 25 years in trade and development including senior roles at the World Trade Organization (WTO), including being the Deputy Aid for Trade Coordinator and Advisor to the Director General and the UN International Trade Centre (ITC) where he served as Chief of Staff. Wilson also previously worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade in Barbados. He chairs the WTO Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (MSME) group, coordinates the Geneva chapter of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group and sits on the Boards of UNCTAD’s ASYCUDA; the International Gender Champions; the Forum on Trade, Environment and the SDGs (TESS); and the World Economic Forum’s Green Trade Steering Committee. He has previously chaired the WHO Executive Board; the WTO Special and Differential Treatment negotiations for the Trade Facilitation Agreement; and co-chaired the process for the 2023 Bridgetown Declaration on Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health.

Dechen Wangmo is a Bhutanese politician who served as the Minister of Health from November 2018 to 2023. Before becoming a politician in 2018, Wangmo worked as a public health international consultant with a focus on health systems, governance, policy and strategic planning for governments and civil society in many different countries. She received a Master of Public Health in Global Health Epidemiology from Yale University and a Bachelor of Science from Northeastern University. Wangmo is a member of Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT), formerly the Social Democratic Party, which was Bhutan’s governing party from 2018 to 2023. Since 2020, Wangmo has been a member of the Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (co-chaired by Sheikh Hasina and Mia Mottley). Wangmo is a founder of the Bhutan Cancer Society and a founding chairperson for Lhaksam, an HIV positive network in Bhutan. In 2018 she served as the executive board member of the World Health Organization (WHO) for one year, and at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic she was elected as president of the 74th World Health Assembly.

H.E. Excellency Ambassador Leslie Ramsammy is a Guyanese politician. He¨ served as the Minister of Agriculture from 2011 to 2015 and before that was the Minister of Health for 10 years. He served as the president of the World Health Assembly (WHA) and the Pan- American Health Organization (PAHO)’s directing council. He was the representative, for Latin America and the Caribbean on the Board of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. At the Caribbean regional level, Ramsammy was recently named chairman of the executive board of CARPHA. H.E. Excellency Ambassador Leslie Ramsammy has a long and distinguished career in public health and global health governance, making him incredibly well connected in the field.

Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng (M.D) is a globally renowned medical doctor, broadcaster and a bestselling author. She is the currently the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. She is also the co-chair of the O’Neill-Lancet Commission on racism, structural discrimination and global health. Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng works in global health policy, in clinical care and health management and has intervened as amici in many jurisdictions across the world, advancing jurisprudence on the right to health. She is widely published with a formidable global syndication of her scholarly work. Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng was named one of 30 extraordinary women who shaped South Africa’s 30 years of democracy in 2024. Shehe was in the inaugural TIME magazine’s global health leadership forum and was recognized as a “Forbes Power Woman” and cover star in February 2024. Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng received the Global Excellence Award in 2023 and was named among the BBC’s Top 100 Women 2021.