Keynote at the World Cancer Leaders’ Summit

November 25, 2015: The World Cancer Leaders’ Summit, an annual high level convening hosted by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) was held in Istanbul on November 18, 2015. The meeting “provides an important forum to secure a coordinated, multileveled global response to address the spiraling cancer epidemic”. UICC is a Geneva based apex body with a membership of 900 organizations across 155 countries.

Since the summit was held immediately after the UN’s pronouncement of the Sustainable Development Goals with their focus on partnerships as a key lever of delivery, its theme centered on international collaboration.

Our President, Dr Sania Nishtar was the keynote speaker alongside the Minister of Health of Turkey at the event. Her talk focused on conflict of interest management, which she explained in an interview “is the bedrock on which partnerships need to be framed”. Her detailed views on the subject can be accessed here: http://goo.gl/NzEbQM

World Cancer Leading Summit Large Image 1

 

 

Professor Emeritus Harvard University and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1985)

‘Choked Pipes is a magisterial book intended not for the day but responds to the needs of an era, written not for a single country but relevant for the intractable health problems of the developing world. Beyond the sumptuous assembly of evidence, presented is the analytical strategy of a doer. The importance of Nishtar’s achievement is that reform flows from the inner moral values that aim to make a social order more
equitable and just.’
——– Bernard Lown ——–
Professor Emeritus Harvard University and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1985)

Commissions of Ending Childhood Obesity main image

October 29, 2015: The Ending Childhood Obesity Commission recently held its European regional consultation in Malta on October 29 and 30. The meeting was organized by the World Health Organization EURO regional office and the Government of Malta and was attended by countries from the region. This consultation is the last in a series of regional consultations, the Commission is holding globally to seek regional perspectives on the issue. The meeting was chaired by our President, Dr. Sania Nishtar, who co-chairs the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity along with Sir Peter Gluckman, Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

 

 

Former President of Ireland and President

‘This book represents a watershed in framing developing country health reform as a step towards realizing the right to health’.
——– Mary Robinson ——–
Former President of Ireland and President, Realising Rights: The Ethical Globalisation Initiative

Hong Kong, China. June 22-23, 2015

The third meeting of WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity
Attended as co-chair

The third meeting of WHO’s Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity was held in Hong Kong on June 22 and 23rd. Dr. Sania Nishtar co-chaired the commission meeting along with co-chair Sir Peter Gluckman, Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

The third meeting of WHO’s Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity was held in Hong Kong on June 22 and 23rd. Dr. Sania Nishtar co-chaired the commission meeting along with co-chair Sir Peter Gluckman, Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Manila, Philippines, March 24-25, 2015

Regional consultation of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity
Attended the meeting as Co-Chair of the Commission

Manila, Phillpines, March 24-25, 2015, Sania Nishtar at the Regional consultation of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity Attended the meeting as Co-Chair of the Commission

Manila, Phillpines, March 24-25, 2015, Sania Nishtar at the Regional consultation of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity Attended the meeting as Co-Chair of the Commission

Sania Nishtar graduated from medical school in 1986 as the best graduate with 16 gold medals, a college record, which remains unbroken to date. In 1999 she left a lucrative career as Pakistan’s first woman cardiologist to establish the NGO think-tank, Heartfile which today is the most powerful health policy voice and catalyst for health reform in Pakistan and is recognized as a model for replication in other developing countries. She is the founder of many other health institutions, Pakistan’s Health Policy Forum and Heartfile Financing, a program to protect people against health impoverishment. In 2013 she served as a Federal Minister in Pakistan’s Interim Government, where she held four portfolios, and was instrumental in establishing Pakistan’s Ministry of Health.

Sania Nishtar’s has in-country and international experience. Internationally, she is a member of many Expert Working Groups and Task Forces of the World Health Organization and is co-chair of the WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity. She is also a member of the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum. She has previously served as a member on the boards of the International Union for Health Promotion, the World Heart Federation, WHO’s Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, the Aspen Institute’s Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health, as Chair of GAVI’s Evaluation Advisory Committee and a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. She also led the Pakistan Lancet Series on Health Reform. She has previously headed many global initiatives, including the award winning Global World Heart Day campaign. She is a regular plenary speaker, chair or moderator at global health meetings and a part of organizing major international conferences. She has chaired or been part of many international declarations and statements of the World Health Organization.

Sania Nishtar is a key health policy voice in Pakistan, the author of Pakistan’s first health reform plan, Pakistan’s first compendium of health statistics, and the country’s first national public health plan for NCDs. One of her books, an analysis of Pakistan’s health systems became the blue print for the country’s health policy. She is a member of many boards, advisory groups and task forces and a voice to catalyze change at the broader governance level in Pakistan.

Sania Nishtar is the author of 6 books, more than 100 peer review articles and around the same number of Op-eds. Her latest, Choked Pipes, was published by Oxford University Press in 2010. She is the recipient of Pakistan’s Sitara e-Imtiaz, a presidential award, the European Societies Population Science Award, and many accolades of the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge and the American Biographical Center. In 2011 she received the prestigious Global Innovation award, which was given only to four individuals in the world, one of them being President Bill Clinton. Sania Nishtar holds a Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and a Ph.D from Kings College, London.