By Ndidi Chukwu
Four Philanthropists have emerged winners of the 1st Global Humanitarian Award for Women and Children’s Health. The Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said the award recognizes individuals who, with great vision and leadership, have invested private wealth to advance Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health, especially family planning, at the country and global level. A press release made available to Health Reporters said the awards will be presented at the 2015 International Conference for Family Planning taking place on the 9th of November in Indonesia. The conference according to the release is co-hosted by the Gates Institute and the Indonesian National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN).
“Due to the giving and commitments made by the honorees of the Global Humanitarian Award, significant progress is already being made toward enabling access to life-saving family planning resources and advancing maternal and child health and well-being in communities around the world,” said Jose “Oying” Rimon II, Director of the Gates Institute and Chair of the ICFP International Steering Committee. “This award recognizes the tremendous contributions made by these individuals to the goal of saving lives worldwide—thousands, if not millions, at a time.”
The 2015 winners of the Global Humanitarian Award for Women’s and Children’s Health are:
- Dato’ Sri Prof. Dr.Tahir, Founder and Chairman of the Tahir Foundation
- Sir ChristopherHohn, Co-founder of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF)
- Fayeeza Naqvi, Chairman & Co-founder, and Mr.Arif Masood Naqvi, Co-founder of the Aman Foundation.
The awards according to the report will be conferred on the honorees during the opening ceremony of the ICFP. The awards is expected to be conferred by His Excellency Joko Widodo, President of the Republic of Indonesia and Melinda French Gates, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
ICFP holds biannually since 2009, it serves as a strategic inflection point for the family planning community worldwide. It also provides an opportunity for scientists, researchers, policymakers and advocates to disseminate knowledge, celebrate successes and identify next steps toward reaching the goal of enabling an additional 120 million women to access voluntary, quality contraception by 2020.
The 2015 ICFP is co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the National Population and Family Planning Board of Indonesia (BKKBN). The conference is made possible through the ICFP Core Group – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, UNFPA, USAID, FP2020, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Marie Stopes International (MSI) and the UN Foundation as well as the International Steering Committee and National Steering Committee of the ICFP
