April 15, 2026 – Knowledge Exchange Cafe

Session description: Women remain significantly underrepresented in global health leadership. This gap contributes to blind spots in data, program design, and service delivery, reinforcing inequities in access and outcomes for women and girls affected by NTDs. This webinar explores how advancing women’s leadership and embedding gender analysis across decision‑making can strengthen the effectiveness, fairness, and reach of NTD strategies.

Session objectives:

• Understand the scale of gender underrepresentation in global health research and policy, particularly in the context of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), where women hold less than 30% of executive roles and only 20% of organizations have gender-balanced boards.
• Examine the impact of this underrepresentation on research and policy outcomes, including gaps in gender-sensitive perspectives, inequities in access to care, quality of services, and health outcomes for women and girls affected by NTDs.
• Identify and discuss initiatives that promote change, highlighting programs, policies, and strategies that foster equitable representation, inclusion of women in decision-making, and the integration of gender perspectives in research design and public health interventions.
• Foster actionable insights on how equitable participation of women at all levels of leadership can enhance the effectiveness, fairness, and reach of NTD research, prevention, and policy strategies.

Moderator:

Ms María González is a specialist in Education for Social Transformation. She leads projects at the Anesvad Foundation that aim to make visible African women scientists and policymakers who are at the forefront of the fight against NTDs. Through podcasts, comics, exhibitions, awards, and other activities, she raises awareness among the global public about gender justice and the need for equity in science and policy-making.

Speakers:

Dr. Gloria Dada Chechet is a molecular parasitologist and Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria. Her research spans neglected tropical diseases, diagnostic innovation, and pathogen surveillance, alongside critical analysis of gender and intersectional inequities in global health research and policy. She is the Scientific lead of the EDCTP3-funded Multiplex AI consortium. She participated in the first edition of Anesvad Foundation’s LEARN Africa scholarships programme.

Prof. Emilienne Epée is a Cameroonian physician, professor, and national public health leader. As Head of Cameroon’s Neglected Tropical Diseases Control Unit and Full Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Yaoundé I. Founder of Women in Neglected Tropical Diseases (WINs), she mentors the next generation of African women scientists and decision-makers. Within the WINs initiative, she also conducts research on gender and NTDs in a project co-led with Anesvad Foundation.

Watch the recording here.