The Rafael M. Salas Memorial Lecture series provides a unique forum for distinguished guest lecturers to discuss important aspects of population and development.
This year’s lecture will be delivered by Dr. Peter Piot, Special Advisor to the European Commission President, Professor of Global Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and former Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on the topic "A new era for global health."
The lecture will be followed by a high-level interactive panel discussion moderated by Sherwin Bryce-Pease, Bureau Chief & Correspondent of SABC News. In addition to Dr. Piot, other speakers will include Ambassador Carmelita Salas, Dr. Natalia Kanem, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and UNFPA Executive Director, H.E. Mr. Martin Kimani Permanent Representative of Kenya & President of the Executive Board of UNDP, UNFPA and UNOPS and Mr. Dennis Francis, the President of the General Assembly.
The 19th Rafael M. Salas Memorial Lecture will take place on Wednesday, 15 November 2023 at 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST.
On the lecture series:
The lecture series was initiated in 1989 as a tribute to Mr. Rafael M. Salas, who served as the first Executive Director of UNFPA. Under his leadership, UNFPA grew into the world’s largest provider of multilateral population assistance. The first lecture was delivered by The Honorable Dr. Saburo Okita, former Foreign Minister of Japan, on Population and Development, and the most recent speaker, in 2022, was Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) who spoke on the role of trade in improving the lives of women and girls.
More about Dr. Peter Piot:
Peter Piot MD PhD is a Professor of Global Health and former Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is Special Advisor the President of the European Commission and EU Chief Scientific Advisor on European and global health security. He is also visiting professor at the Rega Institute, KU Leuven, the University of Antwerp, and the National University of Singapore.
He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under- Secretary General of the United Nations. He co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976 and led pioneering research on HIV, women’s health and infectious diseases. He trained at the University of Ghent (MD) and the Institute of Tropical Medicine/University of Antwerp (PhD) and has held positions at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp; the University of Washington, Seattle, USA; the University of Nairobi; Imperial College London; the College de France, Paris, and the Gates Foundation.
He is a member of the Belgian, American, British, and French National Academies of Medicine, and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He is Chair of the Global Burden of Disease Independent Advisory Committee and Chair of the International Advisory Panel, PREPARE & PrepVax, Singapore. He is also Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Institut Pasteur de Dakar, Vice-Chair of GHIT Fund, Tokyo, and was a founding Board Member of CEPI, as well as of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, Malaria. In 1995 he was made a Baron in his native Belgium, and in 2016 received a UK Knighthood. His awards include the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award, Robert Koch Gold Medal, Prince Mahidol Award, Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize, and Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. He was a 2014 TIME Person of the Year. In 2023 he was awarded a lifetime achievement award from the WHO the French Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur for his services to Global Health. He has published over 600 scientific articles and 16 books, including his memoir, No Time to Lose, available in 5 languages.
