Dr. Olive Shisana is a distinguished researcher, policy expert, and leader with over 30 years of experience in research, management, policy development, fundraising, and multilateral collaboration.
Her international experience spans the USA, South Africa, and Switzerland, where she has honed her ability to manage diverse environments. For six and a half years, she served as the Social Policy Special Advisor to the President of South Africa, Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa, providing strategic guidance on National Health Insurance (NHI) and health system strengthening.
As a scientist, Dr. Shisana has been at the forefront of advancing universal health coverage. She chaired the Ministerial Advisory Committee on NHI for five years, later assisting the Ministry of Health in drafting NHI legislation, developing funding strategies, improving service delivery, and enhancing healthcare quality.
On the global stage, she served as Technical Co-Chair of the ACT-A (Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator), ensuring the rapid development, scale-up, and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics while strengthening global health systems. She also chaired the South African BRICS Think Tank, where she played a key role in developing draft health indicators.
Dr. Shisana holds a Doctor of Science from Johns Hopkins University, School of Public Health, specializing in epidemiology and risk factors of communicable diseases such as HIV and COVID-19. She was the founder and Principal Investigator for four waves of South Africa’s population-based HIV survey (2002-2012), which received international recognition