Moses Bockarie joins EDCTP as Director of South-South Cooperation and Head of Africa Office

11 July 2016

Professor Moses John Bockarie joined EDCTP as Director of South-South Cooperation and Head of Africa Office on 1 July 2016. Prof. Bockarie, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, is a specialist in the field of neglected infectious diseases and an internationally experienced researcher. He has worked in many countries in Africa, Europe and the Pacific region, and in the United States of America.

“On behalf of the greater EDCTP family, I warmly welcome Professor Bockarie as our newly appointed Director of South-South Cooperation. This is a timely appointment to strengthen our cooperation with sub-Saharan African countries and to bolster their commitment and active participation in the second programme of EDCTP.”

Michael Makanga, EDCTP Executive Director

The Director of South-South Cooperation is responsible – in addition to the management of the EDCTP office in Cape Town South Africa – for coordinating and executing all tasks of the EDCTP programme that are most effectively and efficiently conducted from Africa. This includes overall responsibility for establishing and developing partnerships with African political leadership and policy makers and especially with the African member countries of the EDCTP Association. The responsibility of the Director also includes the development of collaboration with product development partnerships, relevant funding agencies and foundations, non-governmental organisations, pharmaceutical industry, and the scientific community, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The Director reports to the EDCTP Executive Director and will work closely with the EDCTP High Representatives, especially the one for Africa.

Career

Prof. Bockarie was the Director of the Centre for Neglected Tropical Diseases and Professor of Tropical Health Sciences at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), United Kingdom from 2008 to 2015. Before joining EDCTP as a Director, Moses Bockarie was a member of the independent EDCTP Scientific Advisory Board. He is the 2016 recipient of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Mackay Medal for outstanding work in tropical health. He is also Chair of the WHO/TDR Scientific Working Group for Vectors, Environment and Society and a member of the WHO Regional Programme Review Group for Neglected Tropical Diseases in the African Region.

Moses Bockarie obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Zoology from the University of Sierra Leone and a Masters and PhD in tropical health sciences from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He worked on various research programmes on malaria and other neglected diseases in Sierra Leone, before taking up an appointment at the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research, becoming Principal Research Fellow in Medical Entomology and Head of the Vector Borne Disease Unit in 1996. In 2005 he joined the Centre for Global Health and Diseases, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio, USA as Visiting Professor, where he continued his research on neglected diseases until his appointment in Liverpool in 2008.