# Ahmed Ogwell

Ahmed E. Ogwell Ouma (born 1969) is a Kenyan public health specialist and an expert in health policy, health security, global health diplomacy and non-communicable diseases. He is formerly the acting Director and the Deputy Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. He is currently the Vice President for Global Health Strategy at the United Nations FoundationUN Foundation

## Early life and education

Ahmed Ogwell was born and raised in the seaside city of Mombasa, Kenya. He attended his early schooling in Mombasa, progressed to Lenana School in Nairobi for his secondary education and later joined the University of Nairobi, where he completed a Bachelor's in Dental Surgery and a master's degree in Public Health (MPH). In 2000 he moved to the University of Bergen where he attained a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in International Health.

## Career

Ahmed was appointed the Vice President for Global Strategy at the UN Foundation in May 2024, where he spearheads one of the UN Foundation’s largest portfolios spanning global health policy, advocacy, convening, and grantmaking, in support of the United Nations and its health-related causes.
Ahmed's interest in the health sector started very early in as a result of personal circumstances. While at medical school, he decided to focus on prevention and control of diseases rather than doing clinical work. Having lost both his parents and his sister to cancer, Ogwell has dedicated his early career to the prevention of non-communicable diseases. He started at the Ministry of Health, where he led the work of non-communicable diseases and later moved to set up the Office for International Health Relations. He then moved to the World Health Organization to lead the Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. He later moved to the Africa Regional Office of WHO in Brazzaville before moving back to Geneva as a senior advisor to the Assistant Director-General responsible for the Global Coordination Mechanism on non-communicable diseases.
Ogwell was hired as the inaugural deputy director for Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in 2019. He then assumed the role of acting director in 2022 when Dr. John Nkengasong was appointed the US ambassador to PEPFAR. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ogwell was essentially the chief of operations at the Africa CDC and also responsible for liaison with various partnerships.
Ahmed has led the Africa CDC to advocate for the New Public Health Order, which is a vision for Africa to reset its role in global health security. He has been and continues to be a strong voice for Africa to own its challenges and lead in providing of solutions to its problems. Ahmed has led the advocacy for this new way of working under the New Public Health Order, where the continent sets its priorities, invests local resources first, then invites partners to fill the gap required to provide the health solution.
Ogwell has also excellently delivered the first in-person International Conference on Public Health in Africa with great success. It remains the premier public health conference in Africa.

## Select publications

* Marguerite M Loembe; Akhona Tshangela; Stephanie J Salyer; Jay K Varma; Ahmed E Ogwell Ouma; John N Nkengasong (11 June 2020). "COVID-19 in Africa: the spread and response". Nature Medicine. doi:10.1038/S41591-020-0961-X. ISSN 1078-8956. PMID 32528154. Wikidata Q96302877.
* Sofonias K Tessema; Seth C Inzaule; Alan Christoffels; Yenew Kebede; Tulio de Oliveira; Ahmed E Ogwell Ouma; Christian T Happi; John N Nkengasong (18 August 2020). "Accelerating genomics-based surveillance for COVID-19 response in Africa". The Lancet Microbe. doi:10.1016/S2666-5247(20)30117-8. ISSN 2666-5247. PMID 32838350. Wikidata Q98663518.
* Nigar Nargis; Yahya Manneh; Bakary Krubally; Baboucarr Jobe; Ahmed E Ogwell Ouma; Noureiny Tcha-Kondor; Evan H Blecher (26 August 2016). "How effective has tobacco tax increase been in the Gambia? A case study of tobacco control". BMJ Open. 6 (8): e010413. doi:10.1136/BMJOPEN-2015-010413. ISSN 2044-6055. PMC 5013455. PMID 27566626. Wikidata Q37236808.

## Personal life

Ogwell is married with children.