IFFIm appoints Fatimatou Zahra Diop to its Board of Directors

IFFIm appoints Fatimatou Zahra Diop to its Board of Directors

10 June 2015

Economist from Senegal brings new insights on public-private partnerships

Washington DC and Geneva, 10 June 2015 - Fatimatou Zahra Diop has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the International Financing Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm).

Diop recently retired as Secretary General of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), where she was responsible for the successful management of eight member countries as well as offices in Dakar and Paris. She is a co-founder of Afrivac, a public-private partnership which highlights the need to strengthen African budgets to ensure self-financing immunisation programmes; she currently serves as Vice President of Afrivac’s Board of Directors.

“The IFFIm Board has made a wonderful selection in appointing Fatimatou Zahra Diop,” said Awa-Marie Coll-Seck, Minister of Health of Senegal and Gavi Board Member. “She had an extraordinary impact as Secretary-General of BCEAO, and as a co-founder of Afrivac, she has demonstrated a passion to ensure all children receive basic vaccination.”

Diop, a trained economist, says she hopes to bring both a female and an African perspective to the IFFIm Board.

“I will be the only African on the Board and perhaps I can bring a field perspective,” said Diop. “I am living in a Gavi country and I know the different problems we are facing. When you go in the streets in my country, you meet many young girls and boys with diseases that could have been prevented by vaccines.”

IFFIm is a multilateral development institution created to accelerate the availability of predictable, long-term funds for health and immunisation programmes through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance in the world’s poorest countries.

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