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Malawian female scientist gets global UN role

 United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres has appointed Nyovani Madise, one of the country’s female professors, to be among 15 global scientists to draft the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report.

 Her appointment comes barely weeks after President Lazarus Chakwera stated that there are few qualified women in the country to be considered for public appointments.

In interview yesterday, Madise said she was thrilled to be appointed among some of the world’s best scientists to draft the global sustainable development report.

She said: “I am very happy to be nominated to do this important and global report which will give guidance to countries on how to accelerate achievement of the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals].”

Madise: I am happy
to be nominated

Madise said she feels satisfied to have been appointed through a fair process, having submitted her curriculum vitae following a request for nominations for scientists.

A statement published on the UN website states that the appointments, which have incorporated scientists from a diverse

 background, were done following thorough consultations.

The statement further states that the scientists, through the report, will inform the follow-up and review of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs.

Reads the statement in part: “The report aims to strengthen the science policy interface and to serve as a strong evidence-based instrument to support policymakers in promoting poverty eradication and sustainable development.

“The next global sustainable development report will be published in 2023, feeding into the high-level global review of the 2030 Agenda at the United Nations in September of that year.”

Madise, who is African Institute for Development Policy head for Malawi office and director of research and development policy, will serve in the UN role alongside other scientists from Trinidad and Tobago,

 Qatar, Russia, Botswana, Senegal, Japan, Australia, Peru, Philippines, China, Sweden, India, Germany and Canada.

A former professor at the University of Southampton, she complet ed her undergraduate degree in Mathematics at the University of Malawi in 1983 and later moved to the United Kingdom where she pursued a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in social statistics at the University of Southampton.

An adviser to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Madise received an honorary higher degree from the University of Aberdeen in 2016 in recognition for her work in research on Africa’s healthcare system.

Apart from working as lecturer at the University of Malawi and senior research scientist at the African Population and Health Research Centre in Kenya, Madise has also held other key senior positions in various institutions.

She has, among others, been associate dean research in large, deputy head of school, university lead for equality diversity and inclusion, director for public policy and director of the centre for global health, population, poverty and policy at the University of Southampton.

Madise also sits on advisory committees such as the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council and Research Council Norway, among others.

She has also previously served on the Wellcome Trust Public Health and Tropical Medicine inter view committee and UK Commonwealth Scholarship Commission.

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