Dr. Shabnum Sarfraz, Global Director for Gender and Health and Deputy Executive Director, is a seasoned development professional with over 15 years of experience in leadership positions. She has successfully managed large-scale and high-impact project portfolios, led multidisciplinary and cross-cultural teams, and collaborated effectively with institutions both locally and internationally. As a co-founder of Women in Global Health Pakistan, she had brought together over 900 women leaders to advance the gender transformative leadership agenda. 

Dr. Sarfraz has previously held a position at the Federal Planning Commission, Government of Pakistan, which is headed by the Prime Minister. In this capacity, she was responsible for ensuring overall financial control and monitoring the delivery and performance of the complete cluster of social development in the country. She also served as the national focal point for coordination with ministers and senior bureaucrats to facilitate investments in social development with a cross-cutting focus on addressing gender inequality. 

She led Pakistan's national COVID19 response efforts and served as the national focal person for SDGs. She also led Pakistan's Voluntary National Review, which she presented at various international forums such as the UN HQ, UNESCAP, SAFS, UNGA, OIC-StatCom, and SAARC, among others. 

Dr. Sarfraz has her interest in health system strengthening, driving systems reforms, implementing datadriven programmatic and policy initiatives, and promoting gender-transformative leadership. She played a key role in collaborating with PHE UK and the Turkish MOH to develop a public health management authority in Pakistan, with the aim of strengthening national emergency preparedness and response. She was successful in securing Pakistan membership with the International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI). Prior to this, she served as a Senior Technical Advisor at Marie Stopes International (MSI) UK, a Regional Human Resource for Health (HRH) Advisor at WHO, and a Member of the Country Team at the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). She has worked with various multilateral and bilateral agencies and played a pivotal role in launching Grand Challenges for Pakistan by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as securing COVID19 loan assistance from the World Bank and ADB. In collaboration with the office of FCDO, she has led gender, health, and education initiatives. She recently conducted an economic evaluation of out-of-school girls in partnership with UNICEF. She has also worked with UN Women to promote gender-supportive work environments and conducted reproductive health and population situation analysis in partnership with UNFPA. Furthermore, she contributed to the strengthening of the national office for GFATM for the Global Fund, among other initiatives. 

As a regional advisor on HRH, Dr Sarfraz collaborated extensively with WHO and GHWA on policy initiatives such as the HRH Strategic Framework, HRH Observatory, and HRH Profiling for Pakistan. In her capacity as a government representative, she advocated for HRH issues at regional and international forums and ensured compliance with regional and global HRH strategic frameworks, including the implementation of the WHO Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel in Pakistan. Previously, she served as the regional advisor for HRH for the GHWA, covering Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nepal. Dr Sarfraz spearheaded and successfully launched Pakistan's national gender policy framework in 2022 and led a national study on gender-inclusive work environments which succeeded in declaring 2022 as the year of respecting female employees by the Government of Pakistan. For the WHO Gender Equity Hub, she conducted a pioneering research study for identifying barriers and facilitators to career advancement for female health professionals. Serendipitously in the year of Nurses and Midwives (2020), she managed to secure 1000 nursing faculty development scholarships and has hosted multiple high level policy forums on strengthening the nursing and community health worker program for meeting the UHC commitment. 

Dr Sarfraz holds Bachelor’s Degree in Medicine, MBA from Surrey University UK and multiple post graduate certifications from globally renowned institutions. She was amongst the four women leaders selected globally for the inaugural cohort of the Harvard University Global Health LEAD Fellowship in 2019. More recently, she was honored with the Vice-Chancellor's Alumni Award in 2021 by the University of Surrey for her outstanding professional achievements. Her exceptional performance and commitment to excellence also earned her the USAID Maternal and Child Health Program Partner Award in 2014.