Mark Dybul, Execuive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, announced yesterday that Marijke Wijnroks will become Chief of Staff at the organization, with broad responsibility and a particular focus on gender and human rights and on engaging with all partners in the cause of global health.
Dr Wijnroks is Ambassador for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and HIV/AIDS, and also Deputy Director of the Social Development Department, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands. She has more than 25 years of experience in global health and development work, serving in the government, at the United Nations and in civil society, and working in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe.
“Marijke is a great leader and a highly effective manager who always comes up with creative solutions that get things done,” said Dr Dybul, who became Executive Director of the Global Fund in January 2013. “Her skill as a team-builder and her sophisticated knowledge of health challenges will guide us and improve our effectiveness.”
Dr Wijnroks’s work on HIV and AIDS response has strongly focused on gender issues, human rights and reaching key populations. She is known as a passionate advocate and an irrepressible optimist, with a results-oriented mind-set and a knack for bringing people together and brokering consensus.
“Marijke’s experience as an advocate for gender and human rights issues will be a great asset to the Global Fund,” added Dr Dybul. “In our new funding model, we are working with our partners to better integrate gender and human rights into our portfolio, and Marijke will help supervise that process.”
In her most recent position, Dr. Wijnroks has overseen policy and strategy development in areas related to HIV and AIDS, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and civil society; advised senior leadership on development and health issues; and represented the Dutch government on the boards of several leading organizations, including the Global Fund, the GAVI Alliance and UNAIDS. She has served on the Board of the Global Fund for several terms since its inception in 2002, and also served for two years as Vice-Chair of the Board’s Ethics Committee.
Earlier in her career, Dr Wijnroks served as a medical coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres in Uganda and South Sudan. She also spent five years in El Salvador as a technical adviser for PAHO/WHO developing local health systems, and two years as a project manager in Bangladesh focusing on maternal and child health.
She earned a medical degree from Maastricht University in the Netherlands and a degree in tropical health and medicine from the Institute for Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium.
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The Global Fund is an international financing institution dedicated to attracting and disbursing resources to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria. The Global Fund promotes partnerships between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities, the most effective way to help reach those in need. This innovative approach relies on country ownership and performance-based funding, meaning that people in countries implement their own programs based on their priorities and the Global Fund provides financing where verifiable results are achieved.
Since its creation in 2002, the Global Fund has supported more than 1,000 programs in 151 countries, providing AIDS treatment for 4.2 million people, anti-tuberculosis treatment for 9.7 million people and 310 million insecticide-treated nets for the prevention of malaria. The Global Fund works in close collaboration with other bilateral and multilateral organizations to supplement existing efforts in dealing with the three diseases.
