Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu

Dr Wondimagegnehu (Wondi) Alemu is a medical doctor specializing in public health. Has extensive leadership experience in government and international organization. He worked at the World Health Organization (WHO) in various leadership capacities for over two decades. During this time, he directed the development and implementation, of the highly successful Integrated Disease Surveillance & Response (IDSR) Program, in the African region (1998-2008) and served as Head of Mission and Representative of WHO in Sierra Leone (2008-2013); Uganda (2013-2016) and Nigeria (2016-2018). 

His impressive track record and passion for making impactful change has been demonstrated throughout his career, which began as a Medical Director at a rural hospital in his native Ethiopia. He continued to serve his country on other Public Health leadership roles including as Manager of Regional/Provincial Health Bureau; Manager of National Immunization Program (EPI) and Head of National Epidemiological Surveillance and Research Division. As immunization Programme Manager, he led the country’s Universal Child Immunization (UCI) efforts.

Before Joining WHO, he worked for UNICEF as a Health Project Officer for child health responsible for childhood diarrheal and respiratory disease control and advising on immunization activities. He co-led the UNICEF’s efforts to support the Ethiopian government in launching the district micro-planning process for accelerating EPI coverage, an innovative approach to raise immunization coverage at the time. 

Leveraging on WHO’s strength as a lead technical health coordinating agency, Dr Alemu has coordinated health partners’ support to the coordinated health emergency and outbreak preparedness and response in Cholera and Lasa viral fever outbreaks in Sierra Leone, Marburg Viral Disease, cholera, measles, yellow fever in Uganda and  cerebrospinal meningitis due to N. meningitides, Lasa hemorrhagic fever, cholera, monkey pox  in Nigeria including overseeing the health response to the humanitarian crisis in North-Eastern Nigeria.

Dr Alemu’s areas of expertise include health systems and services strengthening, epidemiology, public health surveillance, disease prevention and control and global health leadership. He has worked extensively with several African governments, NGOs, CSOs and intergovernmental & bilateral organizations. He is a strong advocate for community engagement in delivery of equitable quality health care to the individuals, family, and community to achieve UHC for all. He is a champion for gender equality and empowerment as well as elimination of violence against women.