Samira Bawumia attends 72nd World Health Assembly session in Geneva

The wife of the Vice President, Samira Bawumia, will address the High-level Panel of the 72nd Session of the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland.

WHA is the decision-making body of the World Health Organisation.

Mrs Bawumia, who is an ambassador for the UN Foundation’s, Clean Cooking Alliance, will be speaking at the event to launch the Global Health and Energy Platform of Action on Tuesday. 

The World Health Organisation adopted the idea to establish a new multi-stakeholder Global Energy-Health Platform of Action in 2018 to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 on health and SDG 7 on energy, starting with a focus on clean cooking. 

The aim of the platform is to pilot closely linked sustainable energy and health solutions at country-level to create strong multiplier effects to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and the objectives of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. 

WHO believes the interlinkages between energy and health are numerous. Clean household energy improves the health and well-being of all, particularly women and children who often bear the greatest health risk from household air pollution.

Improvements in energy efficiency and with an increased reliance on renewable energy are critical for ensuring the delivery of health care services, particularly in remote settings, while at the same time minimizing the climate footprint of the health sector.

Other Speakers include ​Dr Zulema Tomás, Peru’s Minister for Health; Dymphna van der Lans, CEO, Clean Cooking Alliance; Salvatore Vinci, Deputy Director, Country Support and Partnerships Division, International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA);

Isabel Raya, Energy Policy and Partnerships Consultant, Division for the Sustainable Development Goals, UN-DESA; Sheila Oparaocha, International coordinator and programme manager, ENERGIA & Co-facilitator of the SDG 7 Technical Advisory Group.

The rest are Luc Severi, Manager, Energy Access, United Nations Foundation; Dr. Poonan Singh, WHO Regional Director SEARO; Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional Director AFRO (TBC); and Nathalie Olijslager Jaarsma, DPR/Ambassador, Permanent Mission Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Nations and other international organisations at Geneva.