Awa Marie Coll Seck

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 (including malaria, measles, meningitis, tetanus, typhoid, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and cardiovascular diseases), and is a member of over 20 professional societies and organizations.

Career

From 2001-2003 and again from 2012-(August)2017, Coll-Seck has served as the Minister of Health of the Republic of Senegal. As Minister of Health, she initiated far-reaching reform of the health sector in Senegal and engaged a wide range of government, civil society and private sector partners in the implementation and expansion of public health programmes. She mobilized strong political commitment within her country for health to be rightly recognized as key to economic and social development, and she successfully mobilized financial resources both domestically and from bilateral and multilateral international donors.

From 1996 to 2001, Coll-Seck served as a Director at the Joint United Nations Programme for HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Utilizing her skills and experience in policy formulation and scientific research, 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. Also since January 2016, she has been serving on the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).

Recognition

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 (WAHO, 2002–2003) and is currently a member of the Academy of Sciences and Technologies of Senegal.