Board of Directors - WACI Health

An honorary position towards equitable health for all.

Specialists in the areas of health, social issues and development, economists, people – our Board of Directors consists of voluntarily acting experts who have one thing in common: the desire to have equitable health for all. Guided by Evaline Kibuchi, Chair of the Board, the Board oversees the work of the Executive Management internally and represents the organization externally.

Evaline Kibuchi

Board Member

Dudu Simelane

Board Member

Ida Jooste

Board Member

Itai Rusike

Board Member

Rosemary W. Mburu

Board Member

Mike Podmore

Board Member

Evaline Kibuchi

Board Member

Evaline Kibuchi is the Chief National Coordinator, Stop TB Partnership- Kenya. She is the Africa TB Caucus Regional Director. Evaline has over a decade of experience in advocacy in public health with demonstrated commitment to reducing the burden of public health issues in Africa and globally through advocacy. She is an expert in Public health policy advocacy, communication and social mobilization, media engagement, coalitions & partnership and community engagement.

She also has a keen interest in Global Health financing where is a member of the Africa Health Platform, an outfit that advocates for domestic financing for health in Africa. She has been an ardent advocate for increased investment to health through Global fund and domestic finances.

She brings with her a great network Members of Parliament both from the region and globally as the coordinator of the Parliamentary TB Caucus and a member of the secretariat of the global TB Parliamentary caucus. She was instrumental in establishing the first ever National TB Caucus in Africa which and took lead in the formation of Africa TB Caucus. She is a board member of the Aids Health Foundation (AHF).

She is a Sociology graduate from University of Nairobi and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism and Mass communication from the same University. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Public Health (MPH)

Dudu Simelane

Board Member

Dudu Simelane is the Team Leader: East and Southern Africa at the IPPF Africa Regional office and has a responsibility to lead a team of Technical Advisors who support the IPPF Member Associations (MAs) in the East and Southern Africa sub-region to deliver quality integrated SRH, HIV and other health programmes and further ensuring that MAs are well managed, well governed and have robust organisational systems at all levels.

Prior to joining IPPF, Dudu was Regional Manager: East and Southern Africa (ESA) at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance (IHAAs) in the United Kingdom . Her role included overseeing the Alliance’s programmes in the ESA sub-region. In this role she co-led the development of a strategy to reposition the IHAAs presence in Southern Africa.

Dudu has also worked as the Executive Director of the Family Life Association of Swaziland (FLAS), the IPPF affiliate in Swaziland and has also worked as Director of Programs /Deputy Executive Director at FLAS. Her other work experience has been with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) where she worked as the Special Assistant to the UN Resident Coordinator in Swaziland where she was responsible for the coordination of UN Joint Programs in the UN system in Swaziland. Dudu has also worked at the Council of Swaziland Churches in various capacities.

She has led and championed a number of initiatives in the course of her work including the integration of HIV/AIDS programs into SRH. She was one of the key players in the pioneering of a national voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) for HIV prevention program in Swaziland. Dudu has also served on various committees and boards in Swaziland and in the Southern Africa region which include among others as a member of the FP2020 Performance, Measurement and Evidence (PME) working Group 2013-2015.

Dudu is a seasoned conference speaker, having presented papers at various conferences including the IAC 2008, NGO forum on the ICPD 2009, UNAIDS PCB 2010 thematic session on SRH/HIV, IAC 2010, ICFP 2011, ICASA 2013, ICASA 2015, IAC 2016 among others.

Dudu holds a Masters in Development Studies from the University of South Africa, a Post Graduate Diploma in Economic and Social Studies from the University of Manchester’s Institute of Development Policy and Management (IDPM) in the UK as well as a BA in Social Sciences from the University of Swaziland.

Ida Jooste

Board Member

Ida Jooste, is an award-winning journalist, media technical expert and seasoned manager with over 25 years experience. She serves as the Global Health Advisor at Internews and has played a leading role in the organisation’s COVID-19 pivot and health literacy work with media partners, helping them make meaning of fast-moving science for their audiences, to produce impactful narratives and to counter misinformation.

Ida has deep and long-standing media specialisation in HIV science, sexual and reproductive health rights and gender-related health issues, science literacy and science and crisis communication.

She has been in leadership positions of both newsrooms and media development projects since 1996. She served as Country Director at the Kenya Health Media project and also led an innovative data journalism training program and introduced media training initiatives on road safety and the extractives industry in Kenya.

Ida’s vast experience as a journalist in various parts of Africa has resulted in her to have an innate understanding of intercultural communications and journalism support appropriate to settings in the developing world. Her journalism has focused on governance issues, corruption, transparency, human rights, health/HIV and investigative and analytical storytelling aimed at better educating the public and ensuring the voices of citizens are heard.

Itai Rusike

Board Member

Itai Rusike is a public health activist with almost 20 years of experience organizing involvement of communities in health actions in Zimbabwe. He is the Executive Director of the Community Working Group on Health – Zimbabwe. He joined the organization at its inception in early 1998 and rose through the ranks from a Field Officer to Health Education Officer to Programme Manager and senior leadership.

Itai is the past Deputy-Chairperson of the Public Health Advisory Board in Zimbabwe, a member of the National Steering Committee on Results Based Financing (RBF), a National Maternal Deaths Surveillance and Response (MDSR) Committee Member, and National Steering Committee Member for the Reproductive Maternal Neonatal Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCH-A). Itai also serves as an Editorial Committee Member of the Health Matters Magazine in Zimbabwe. He represents NGOs in the National Steering Committee Member of the Health Development Fund (HDF) and is a member of the National Validation Committee for the Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV and Syphilis (EMTCT) in Zimbabwe.

He is a Steering Committee member of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET), coordinating the Social Empowerment Cluster for primary health care-oriented health systems. In addition to being a member of the WACI Health board, Itai is the chairperson for the People’s Health Movement Zimbabwe, a member of the Advisory Group for the UHC2030 Civil Society Engagement Mechanism (CSEM), and coordinator of the African Civil Society Network for Universal Health Coverage (AP-UHC). Itai is a member of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) for the Economic Social and Cultural Rights Thematic Working Group. He was in the first Zimbabwe National AIDS Council Board.

Itai holds tertiary level qualifications in mechanical engineering, community journalism, research methods, health financing and universal health coverage.

Rosemary W. Mburu

Board Member

Rosemary W. Mburu has been a champion for healthy communities for over fifteen years and currently serves as the Executive Director for WACI Health.

Mburu is a civil society leader in Africa and has extensively worked on supporting civil society to engage with decision makers at community, national, regional and global levels. She is a civil society organizer working on building and strengthening civil society networks and platforms on health-related advocacy and campaigning in Africa.

In her day-to-day work, together with other civil society leaders and organizations in Africa, Ms Mburu engages with governments, key multilateral and bilateral institutions (such as World Health Organization, the Global Fund, the Stop TB Partnership, and the World Bank). She champions healthy communities by engaging with decision makers and senior technical experts directly and through high-level allies, while also building external support via parliamentary and civic engagement, civil society strengthening, and politically relevant media outreach.

Ms. Mburu Holds a Masters in Public Health from Ohio University, a Masters in Business Administration from Frostburg State University, Maryland, and a Bachelor of Education from Kenyatta University, Kenya.

Some of her published work include: The Abuja +12 declaration: implications for HIV response in Africa.; How ethical is your clinical trial?; Getting to zero the biomedical way in Africa: outcomes of deliberation at the 2013 Biomedical HIV Prevention Forum in Abuja, Nigeria; The far-reaching impact of strengthening primary health care; Africa must increase investments in health, now more than ever.

Mike Podmore

Board Member

Mike Podmore is an advocacy and network specialist that has been working in the field of HIV, health, gender and human rights for 20 years. Since 2015, he has been CEO of STOPAIDS, an HIV, health and human rights advocacy network of 50 UK international development agencies working globally to end AIDS and realise all people’s right to health and wellbeing.

Prior to STOPAIDS, he was a policy manager at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and worked for nine years at VSO on HIV, gender and education policy.

Mike has two decades of experience in effectively building coalitions across multiple diverse stakeholders, developing and packaging powerful evidence, mobilising campaigners, the media and parliamentarians, and building strong relationships with decision-makers in the UK and globally to secure policy change. He served as a Board Member of the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria for 4 years and served for two years on their Strategy Committee. He is currently a trustee of Stamp Out Poverty (UK) and a trustee of WACI Health. He is also on the Steering Committee of the Global Fund Advocates Network and Action for Global Health UK.

Under his leadership, STOPAIDS has earned a well-recognised reputation as a best practice model for resource mobilisation advocacy for key global institutions such as the Global Fund, Unitaid, UNAIDS and the Robert Carr Network Fund. During Mike’s tenure, STOPAIDS has become a leading voice for securing more equal access to medicines; in ensuring the digital transformation is grounded in human rights; on the effective integration of HIV within Pandemic preparedness and response and universal health coverage; on ensuring the meaningful involvement of civil society and communities in global health governance; and promoting greater international cooperation, equality and solidarity.

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