Gijs Walraven, MD MPH PhD, is the Director for Health of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) and the General Manager of the Aga Khan Health Service (AKHS) companies located in South and Central Asia, East Africa and the Middle East.
Dr. Walraven is also an Honorary Professor in Community Health Sciences at Aga Khan University. He is based in Geneva and joined the Aga Khan Development Network in 2003. Before this he worked for a period of 15 years in Africa in health care provision, management and research, with a major emphasis on district health systems.
Dr. Walraven has been on several occasions technical advisor to the World Health Organization and he co-chaired the global expert committee on recommendations for optimizing health workers’ roles to improve access to key maternal and newborn health through task shifting.
Dr. Walraven has published widely (more than 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals), presented at international conferences and travelled to discuss and advise on various capacity-building and health systems strengthening projects.