Board of Directors

Dr. Samuel Ikwaras Okware

Director General, Uganda National Health Research Organisation (UNHRO)

Dr. Samuel Okware is a medical doctor with postgraduate training in public health and epidemiology and a PhD in emerging and re-emerging infections, with over 30 years of experience in the management of public health services in Uganda.

Dr. Okware has served as Director General of the Uganda National Health Research Organisation (UNHRO) since 2011, where he leads the regulation, review and approval of health research conduct and coordinates health research work and investigations in Uganda.

He held several senior positions and assignments in the Ministry of Health, Uganda and the World Health Organization. He developed policies in maternal and child health and disease control, and designed public health policy including the Health Sector Strategic Plans. As Commissioner of Health Services he directed disease control programmes including HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and led the development of professional and ethical standards and national work plans on AIDS, environmental sanitation, safe motherhood, nutrition and disability.

He is known for his pioneering work and research on HIV/AIDS. He led the development and implementation of Uganda’s first national AIDS Control Programme, which remains a foundation for AIDS control in the region and reduced HIV prevalence from 18% to 6%. Key components included school-based initiatives and partnerships with religious and civil society organisations, including TASO and UWESO. He currently chairs the National HIV Prevention Committee at the Uganda AIDS Commission and oversees research on HIV/AIDS epidemiology, PrEP, care and vaccine development.

Dr. Okware directed the national response to major emerging and re-emerging epidemics, especially Ebola, Marburg and cholera, and led the teams that successfully contained Ebola and Marburg outbreaks in the country. He also designed the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Health Information Management System in the Ministry of Health, linked public health laboratories to outbreak investigations, and was part of the team that revised Uganda’s public health laws.

Internationally, he served as a WHO consultant in the development and evaluation of mid-term AIDS programmes in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, Malawi, the Gambia and Nigeria, chaired the 9th International Conference on AIDS in Africa in Kampala, and has been a member of the WHO Expert Committee on Research and Development since 2011.

Ms. Elizabeth Nakkungu

Advocate | Former Commissioner, Legal Advisory Services, Attorney General’s Chambers

Ms. Elizabeth Nakkungu is an Advocate with over thirty years’ legal experience as an Attorney in the Attorney General’s Chambers, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, rising to the level of Commissioner, Legal Advisory Services.

Ms. Elizabeth Nakkungu is an Advocate with over thirty years’ legal experience as an Attorney in the Attorney General’s Chambers, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, rising to the level of Commissioner, Legal Advisory Services.

Over the years, she has provided legal advice and services to Government Ministries and Agencies, including the Ministry of Health and the UVRI-IAVI Program.

Ms. Nakkungu has served on various governance boards, including those of Mulago National Referral Hospital, Capital Markets Authority and Micro-Finance Support Centre, providing oversight and strategic leadership.

Dr. Anatoli Bayiru Kamali

Former Africa Field Program Director, IAVI; Former Regional Director – Africa, IAVI

Dr Anatoli Bayiru Kamali holds an M.B.Ch.B. from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, an M.Sc. from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a Ph.D. from City, University of London, with extensive leadership experience in HIV research and vaccine development in Africa.

Dr Anatoli Bayiru Kamali holds an M.B.Ch.B. from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, an M.Sc. from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a Ph.D. from City, University of London.

He was previously Africa Field Program Director (June 2021–August 2022) for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) Program to Accelerate the Development of Vaccines and New Technologies to Combat the AIDS Epidemic (ADVANCE); Regional Director – Africa (2016–2022), International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Nairobi, Kenya, where he led a 5-year, USAID-funded project: ADVANCE (Accelerate the Development of Vaccines and New Technologies to Combat the AIDS Epidemic).

Before joining IAVI, Kamali was the deputy director and head of the HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Research Program at the Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute Unit on AIDS, where he led several HIV trials and enhanced community engagement for numerous studies, several HIV epidemiological and multi-centre, large-scale clinical and field epidemiological studies in Africa. These included STI/behavioural intervention that evaluated impact on HIV incidence in Uganda; Phase I, II and III vaginal microbicide trials; early HIV vaccine trials; Ebola vaccine trials; prophylactic trials among HIV-infected individuals; and HIV epidemiological studies in high-risk cohorts (female sex workers and fishing communities).

Kamali participated in several international scientific collaborations with institutions in the UK, USA and Africa. He has served as a member of the International Data and Safety Monitoring Board of the Division of AIDS at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for various clinical trials in Africa, and as temporary advisor on sexual and reproductive health to the World Health Organization. He was also a member of the U.K. Microbicides Development Programme that conducted a large efficacy and safety phase III microbicide trial for vaginally acquired HIV infection. He was country PI for the safety and efficacy phase III of a Dapivirine Vaginal Ring for HIV Prevention in Women.

He has engaged policy makers at both country and global levels, to provide evidence-based data and inform policy and practice. He led capacity-strengthening initiatives to build African research institutions and foster scientific African leadership to advance effective and relevant biomedical research in Africa by Africans, and ability to respond to local health needs.