Global Advisory Board

Dr. Charles Ok Pannenborg, Chair of the Global Advisory Board on Strengthening Medical, Nursing, and Public Health Schools in Developing Countries
Throughout Africa, Asia, Latin-America, and Europe, Dr. Pannenborg has worked in over 20 countries for various organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He recently retired from the World Bank, where he served as chief health advisor.

Among his many positions, Dr. Pannenborg has directed long-range strategic policy and introduced scenario analysis for health policy at the Netherlands’ Ministry of Health, while simultaneously serving as population and health advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at The Hague. He was the original architect of the first sector-wide approach in health—the successful Bangladesh Population and Health Consortium, which continues to finance one of the largest externally-funded health operations worldwide.

Dr. Pannenborg played a major role in the early global health workforce mobilization. He was a founding member of the Roll-Back Malaria Partnership and the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria, as well as the Inter-Agency Pharmaceutical Coordination Group. He has been a member of a large number of national and international scientific and research committees including the Boards of Directors of the Tropical Disease Research Program and the Global Forum for Health Research, as well as the Board of Ministers and Directors of the large African River Blindness/Onchocerciasis Control Program. He served on the recent WHO Research Strategy Panel and was a member of the 2010 WHO Expert Group on Innovative Financing for Health Research.

He was also directly instrumental in the creation of the Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis and the new Hilleman Laboratories for Health Research for Developing Countries in India.

Dr. Pannenborg was a member of many medical research committees, including those of the Netherlands Medical Research Council and Ministry of Health on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, on Medical Technology Strategies, on long-term Cardiovascular Health Developments, on the Future of the Hospital, on Strategic Oncology Perspectives, and on the Geriatric Outlook of Western Europe. He remains an active member of the European Forum for Good Clinical Practice and the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, and was a founding member of the International Society for Quality Assurance, as well as the International Society for Medical Technology Assessment.

Throughout his career, Dr. Pannenborg held teaching assignments and taught current global health issues at over 30 universities across the globe. He continues to lecture regularly at leading global health institutions such as the National Institute for Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, BRAC, and various African national and regional health science and technology centers.

Currently, Dr. Pannenborg serves as chair of CapacityPlus’s Global Advisory Board on Strengthening Medical, Nursing, and Public Health Schools in Developing Countries. He also continues to serve as chair of the board of the Netherlands’ Government Program on International Health Policy and Health Systems Research and its research funding program and as chair of the Academic Supervisory Committee for Health of the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.

In addition he represents WHO in Washington, DC on its Innovation and Research Program on Diseases of Poverty, serves as a member of the South Africa Ministerial Advisory Committee on Health Reform, and serves on several other nonprofit and charitable foundation boards and programs.

Dr. Pannenborg has published three books and over 30 articles in the various fields of global health, and holds degrees in law and in international relations, tropical medicine and public health, and business.

Photo courtesy of Ok Pannenborg