Opening Session

[1H20201-01-2add] Keynote: Planetary Health and Humanitarian Crises - Causes and Solutions

Professor Dr. Jemilah Mahmood (Executive Director / Sunway Centre for Planetary Health / Sunway University)

【Short bio】
Dr. Mahmood is a medical professional with more than two decades experience managing crises in health, disasters and conflict settings. She is currently Professor and Executive Director of the newly established Sunway Centre for Planetary Health at Sunway University in Malaysia. She is a member of the Malaysian Climate Action Council, the Ministry of Health Advisory Council and Consultative Council for Foreign Policy at the government of Malaysia, as well as a Senior Fellow of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Centre. Dr. Mahmood is also the Pro-Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University Malaysia. She is a strong advocate of planetary health and sustainability and actively advises on Environment, Social and Governance in the advisory and board roles she holds.

She was the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia on Public Health and member of the Government of Malaysia’s Economic Action Council from April 2020-September 2021. Previous appointments include the Under Secretary General for Partnerships at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Chief of the World Humanitarian Summit secretariat at the United Nations, and Chief of the Humanitarian Response Branch at UNFPA. She is the founder of MERCY Malaysia, a southern based international humanitarian organisation. A strong advocate of private-public partnerships, she has been actively engaged with partnership development and program implementation with the private sector in her current and previous roles.

Dr. Mahmood is currently on the board of the Employees Provident Fund of Malaysia, CVS Foundation and ALAM Foundation in Malaysia and joined the board of Roche in Switzerland in March 2022. She is also the Chair of the Surin Pitsuwan Foundation based in Singapore.

She is the recipient of numerous national and international awards including the most prestigious Malaysian Merdeka Award in 2015 and the ASEAN Prize in 2019, for her contribution to peace, community development and humanitarian work. She also received the inaugural Isa Award for Humanity in 2013 from the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Gandhi-King-Ikeda Award for community development and peace building from Morehouse College, USA.

Dr Mahmood graduated as a Doctor of Medicine (MD), has a Masters in Obstetrics & Gynaecology from the same university and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists United Kingdom. She also completed executive education at the International Management and Development Centre, IMD Lausanne and Berkeley Law.