2026-2028 
Technical Advisory Group

Dr. Smisha Agarwal, PhD, MPH, MBA, BDS is the Director of the Center for Global Digital Health Innovation and Associate Professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She brings expertise in advancing primary health care through strengthening community health systems and leveraging innovative technological solutions including digital tools and integrated diagnostics.

Over the last two decades, her research has been leveraged by normative agencies like WHO to develop guidelines on national digital transformation, donors to guide investments in digital health and AI, and governments to develop their national digital health strategies. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Open Digital Health Journal.

Dr. Lorena Binfa is a Professor in Midwifery and Women’s Health at the University of Chile, where she was previously Director of the Department of Women’s and Newborn Health Promotion for the School of Midwifery, and Director of the WHO/PAHO Collaborating Center.

Chair of the Chilean Society for Promoting a Positive Childbirth and of the Latin American Research Network in Midwifery and Sexual and Reproductive Health. She has received numerous awards for her research, including the ICM Research Award.

Dr. Binfa received a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of Chile and her PhD in Medical Science from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

Dr. Cheikh Mbacké Faye is Head of the African Population and Health Research Center regional office in West Africa. He is the Director of the Countdown 2030 Initiative, which calls for accountability of governments and development partners, identifies knowledge gaps and proposes new actions for universal coverage of women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health. 

Dr. Faye completed his doctoral research in public health at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He holds a Master’s degree in Statistics from the Houari Boumediene University of Sciences and Technology, Algeria. Cheikh’s experience includes research on reproductive health—behavioral surveys on HIV and STIs, post-abortion care and family planning—local development and poverty.

Nafisa Jiddawi is a social impact leader, clinician, and systems builder with 16+ years of experience in women’s, maternal, and child health, patient advocacy, and community development across Zanzibar and the United States. She is committed to dismantling the barriers that prevent women from accessing the physical, mental, and social care they deserve.

Nafisa is the visionary behind WAJAMAMA, which prioritizes the holistic health of women and their children during the critical first 1,000 days from conception.

Nafisa is a triple board-certified Family and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and Certified Nurse-Midwife. She holds degrees from Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Dr. Ntuli Angyelile Kapologwe is a Medical Doctor from the University of Dar Es Salaam, with a Master’s in Public Health from Tumaini University and a PhD from the University of Dodoma, researching Direct Health Facility Financing’s effect on maternal, newborn and child health in Tanzania.

In Tanzania, he served as District Medical Officer, Regional Medical Officer, and Director of Health, Social Welfare and Nutrition Services at the President’s Office.

He is now Director General of the East, Central, and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC), driving regional cooperation and health system strengthening.

Dr. Kapologwe sits on national committees on maternal, child and adolescent health, and has published over 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Ms. Jihan Salad is a member of the WHO-UNFPA Expert Review Group for the SRHR-UHC Learning by Sharing Portal, where she focuses on amplifying SRHR implementation stories from fragile and humanitarian settings. She provides strategic guidance, peer review, and advocacy support to surface frontline innovations that strengthen health systems and advance SRHR within UHC.

Ms. Salad brings over 13 years of international experience in SRH, maternal and newborn health, and humanitarian response, including roles with UNFPA in Jordan and Somalia, IOM, and the Somalia Ministry of Health. She holds a Master’s degree in Prevention and Public Health from VU Amsterdam and is an advocate for the 2030 Global Agenda and the ICPD Programme of Action.

Nonkululeko Shibula is a bereavement care doula and parent-voice advocate specializing in stillbirth and perinatal loss. Based in South Africa, her work advances culturally responsive, evidence-informed care for families facing pregnancy and infant loss in African settings. She founded a non-profit supporting families through childbirth, stillbirth, and bereavement, and was among the first doulas in a hospital volunteer program in KwaZulu-Natal.

She has contributed to forums including UKZN, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Sensitive Midwifery, PATCH, and Umuduzi, and gave a Columbia University webinar on bereavement care.

As a bereaved mother, her practice is rooted in lived experience. She sits on the Board of the Intl. Stillbirth Alliance.

Dakshitha Wickremarathne is a Sri Lankan development practitioner with 15+ years in global health policy on maternal, adolescent and child health. A social worker with an MSc in Public Policy from UCL, he focuses on advocacy, policy and program design in health system strengthening, government accountability, and resource mobilisation for family planning and SRH.

He works for FP2030, engaging government, civil society and private sector stakeholders to advance reproductive health policies across 11 Asia-Pacific countries, having previously worked for IPPF, UNFPA, CARE and Search for Common Ground.

Dakshitha serves on the Board of Women Deliver, has advised UN Women’s Global Civil Society Advisory Group, and was a Lancet Commissioner on adolescent health.